INVERSK MAGAZINE
OPINION
COVID-19 Response: neither the US nor the UK can throw stones! At a time when utterances of our leaders are crucial to the fight against the pandemic, I can’t imagine something similar in Kenya or any other part of the world…or, can you? BY PATIENCE NYANGE
T
34 I Inversk Magazine I OCTOBER 2020
19), challenges and progress. There were reasons as to why I should pay attention to them. One, these two are diplomats that I hold in high esteem, and the mere fact that they are serving their tour of duty in my country, I was curious to hear what they had to say about their experience being in Kenya compared to the pandemic response back in their home countries. Two, I am currently a student at Cardiff University in the UK, finalising my dissertation, focusing on government communication in relation to the response and management of COVID-19. I have drawn my literature review from three case studies, the UK, the United States and New Zealand. This means I have spent a remarkable amount of time, reading and researching from these three countries on the subject of COVID-19. The UK and the US have had a fair share of their good deeds and grave mishaps in handling the pandemic. Let me spotlight a few. There is the case of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, subverting the usual presidential communications process via press officers, ignoring journalists during pressers, tweeting away whatever seems to come into his mind including insults, public disinformation and labelling anything that displeases him as fake news. At a time when utterances of our leaders are crucial to the fight against the pandemic, I can’t imagine something similar in Kenya or any other part of the The late Gordon B. Hinckley, an Ameri- world… or, can you? I watch him with can religious leader once said, “In matters utter shock and wonder how blurred the of honesty, there are no shortcuts; no lines have become between the expression little white lies, no big black lies, only the of personal opinion and leadership at a simple, honest truths spoken in candour, time of so much uncertainty. hence being true is different from being With the pandemic having ravaged the honest.” United States in such high magnitude, that Two weeks ago, I saw a poster make impacts millions of people, I somehow rounds on social media about a recent expected that the US Ambassador would television interview featuring the United talk about some of these experiences in Kingdom’s High Commissioner to Kenya, his own country compared to how Kenya Jane Marriot and her American counter- was faring. Especially looking at some of part, Ambassador Kyle McCarter. The the decisions the US made initially includtwo presented “a diplomatic perspective” ing reluctance to take decisive actions to on the Coronavirus pandemic (COVIDstem the spread of the virus that crippled
