Viewpoint by Jayasri Priyalal*
SINGAPORE (IDN) – They are fighting an invisible enemy taking a warpath. Many countries grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic interpret the situation like a war. Frontline, heroes, are found in the battlefield scenarios.
These heroes come from different professions, medical and health care workers being the binding force, the rest including, security, transport, postal logistic, financial service providers, and employees attached to retail industries etc. Aside from them, many unsung heroes are working in hospitals, morgues in burial grounds and the health and sanitary service providers who provide an invaluable essential service to keep the communities together.
The enormous, risk they bear in carrying out their duties are often undervalued, like their health, and the health and safety their families are facing. Unfortunately, all these essential services providing unsung heroes, fall into the bottom of the pyramid in societies without fundamental rights as enjoyed by others.
As things stand today, over 44.7 million infections and nearly 1.17 million deaths across the regions, the situation is beyond control. Taking control to manage the problem is what expected from influential leaders in similar circumstances. Instead, in many countries, it appears that COVID-19 pandemic has taken control over the situation.
The American war veteran General George S Patton quotes used in interpreting in handling challenging situations from his battlefield experiences. He had said, prepare for unknown, studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable. What is seen in the current fix is; many political leaders are confused with known unknowns, and unknown unknowns and happy to disregard the science and medical advice for own convenience. Attitude demonstrates irresponsible leadership in many countries without any clue or strategic plan to manage the situation to overcome the crisis, aside from learning from past experiences.
A similar global pandemic engulfed the world in 1918. The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 flu pandemic, was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza - a virus. In all fairness, this influenza did not originate in Spain. Almost 500 million about a third of the world population infected. The flu spread across the regions as the world was grappling with World War I, where European superpowers were fighting for their imperialistic dominance. At that time, the science was also not advance to segregate the various pathogens whether they are a form of bacteria or a virus.
Even at that time, conspiracy theories were accusing the flu originated from China. The fact remains the spread of the pandemic and deaths resulting from the flu was meagre in China in comparison to other regions. With limited access to the records across China, some believe that the numbers were not accurate. A probable reason for this could be the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with indigenous treatment methods have been used to counter the spread of the disease.
Having brought the COVID-19 situation under control in Wuhan, in Hubei province in China, the doctors practicing western medicine commended the contributions of the TCM practitioners for their assistance in combatting the novel corona virus-COVID-19 imperiously.
Therefore, it will be useful to examine as to how TCM practice has evolved in China to understand the impact if any and its relevance in restraining the flu pandemics. The TCM practice runs back to 3000 years. Chinese medical practitioners have been treating patients with traditional herbal decoctions with careful observations of symptoms and syndromes by maintaining records which have passed from one generation to the other.
Marco Polo the famous Italian traveller who visited China in the 13th century, records, of having seen that the servants who served the emperor -Yuan Dynasty- during meals needed to wear silk scarves to cover their mouths and noses. A Chinese medical scientist Wu Liande invented a mask made of two layers of gauze called "Wu's mask" in response to a plague in Northeast China during the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Experts in different countries highly complimented this mask as it is simple to produce at low cost, and the materials are easy to obtain, and it served the purpose.
Although many of us are still grappling with knowing the origin of the COVID-19 virus, one thing is exact, as per the historical records the source of the facial mask what we all use now is from China. So, it was evident that those who doubt about China's integrity finds it challenging to put on covering the mouth and nose to protect their health even though face masks produced outside China.
This writer has some basic understanding of TCM practice. Under TCM etiology, there are eight categories and principles applied to identify the diseases and the sources. Symptoms and syndromes clinically examined, to diagnose the imbalances in yin, yang, exterior, interior, cold, heat, excesses, and deficiencies. Accordingly, the TCM practice in the past did not identify the pathogens such as bacteria or viral as we are now familiar. So, a flu pandemic such as COVID-19 believed to be caused by exogenous pathogens in TCM clinical examinations.
These exogenous pathogens enter the human body through the skin, nose, and mouth. The nose is the orifice (opening) for the lung, and mouth is the orifice for the spleen, and the tongue is the orifice for the heart. A brief explanation to highlight why the facial mask used to prevent the spread of the diseases originated from external wind pathogens in line with TCM principles originated in China. So, by wearing a face mask one can prevent the spread of the pathogens if already infected and get protection from not getting from others in the community.
Wearing a face mask is very common in most of the East Asian cultures – Japan, Taiwan – respecting this value to be a responsible citizen.
The methods used in TCM to treat patients has many similarities with Ayurvedic and Helawedakam (Sri Lankan indigenous medicine) practices. When exogenous wind pathogens attack, the treatment methods focus mainly to strengthen the immunity system and to disperse the pathogen from the body.
Many of the aromatic herbs usually have the actions of dispelling pathogens and promoting qi (unique in TCM which translate into some form of internal energy) and blood.
Herbal ingredients used in Sri Lankan- and the TCM decoctions have many similarities, but the properties may differ. Aside from these principle TCM etiology also use emotional factors and climatic conditions in identifying patterns causing various diseases.
With the advent of COVID-19 pandemic, numerous social media materials are circulating stressing on the importance to improve the immunity and emotional wellbeing supporting this argument. They are all relevant, but what is most important is social distancing and wearing a facial mask to contain the virus.
Historical facts and the flu pandemic restraining methods and TCM principles explained reviews the issues contributing to ineffective leadership is managing the COVID-19 crisis outside China. The authoritative governance style in China and the leadership demonstrated by President Xi Jinping's firm decisions to lockdown the provinces and cities thus prevented the spread of the virus and bringing the situation under control. The cultural aspects and beliefs well established in Chinese society enabled the citizens to obey the orders and remain disciplined.
To drive this point, let me quote General George S Patton, again; "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity." I think this worked in the same spirit in China, but not in other parts of the world.
In the worst-performing COVID-19 pandemic crisis management countries, the population did not receive a clear message, what to do on their part as in the case of China. Mixed priorities, unclear messages confused the public. In many democracies, the current leaders got elected by riding the popularity waves stirring the nationalistic emotions in the election process. They were good at managing misinformation to achieve their electoral success. They lacked clarity in their message to tell people what to do, and they were not ready to learn from others who successfully coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable in the past. Moreover, they dared to neglect science and professional medical advice. That is how COVID-19 has tested on the leadership abilities of many politicians.
At least from now those leaders grappling need to find solutions for the problem, instead of finding problems in the solutions proven effective in managing similar situations in the past. This article enumerated the historical facts, issues, alternative options for the readers to lobby and influence misleaders to fall into the right track. [IDN-InDepthNews
* The writer is the Regional Director responsible for Finance Sector of UNI Global Union, Asia & Pacific Organization - Singapore.
Image source: IDNFINANCIALS
IDN is flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate.
Visit us on Facebook and Twitter.
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. You are free to share, remix, tweak and build upon it non-commercially. Please give due credit.
"traditional" - Google News
November 23, 2020 at 04:33AM
https://ift.tt/396k27b
COVID-19 and Lessons from Traditional Chinese Medicine - IDN InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters
"traditional" - Google News
https://ift.tt/36u1SIt
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "COVID-19 and Lessons from Traditional Chinese Medicine - IDN InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters"
Post a Comment