"ONCE YOU WERE FULL OF DARKNESS, BUT NOW YOU HAVE LIGHT FROM THE LORD. SO LIVE AS PEOPLE OF LIGHT. FOR THIS LIGHT WITHIN YOU PRODUCES ONLY WHAT IS GOOD AND RIGHT AND TRUE. CAREFULLY DETERMINE WHAT PLEASES THE LORD. TAKE NO PART IN WORTHLESS ACTS OF EVIL AND DARKNESS. INSTEAD, EXPOSE THEM. IT IS HARD TO EVEN DISCUSS THE SHAMEFUL THINGS THAT THE WICKED DO IN SECRET. BUT THEIR EVIL INTENTIONS WILL BE EXPOSED WHEN THE LIGHT SHINES ON THEM, FOR THE LIGHT MAKES EVERYTHING KNOWN." EPH 5:8-13
This post, particularly the first section, is awfully touchy-feely for my taste. If you are really flattened by the impact of the coronavirus, like panicking about your financial situation or trying to get care for a partner or close friend, listening to uplifting stories seems Pollyannaish. Readers may have better ideas for coping with emotional overwhelm.
But for those who have some time and energy, the starter lists of how to help look sound and perhaps members of the commentariat could add to them. And a mundane way to help if you don’t have much personal bandwidth is to check in on highly social family members and friends who are under lockdown. They would find the isolation particularly trying, which might lead them to go out and about more than is good for them and everyone else. So making them feel less alone may help them stay put.
By Sandra Kim, the Founder and Training Director of Re-Becoming Human and Founder and President of Everyday Feminism. Originally published onRe-Becoming Human
In just a couple of weeks, the lives of people have been dramatically changed by the threat of coronavirus and the impact of social distancing and self-quarantining.
And we’re just getting started.
It’s already hitting so many of us, especially those already marginalized in our society.
Many of those who have the financial cushion and safety net to ride out this period are worried and scared of how it will impact so many other people’s lives.
Most people I’ve talked to want to do something to help each other get through this period – which is beautiful and necessary for our collective survival. But there’s a lot that’s getting in the way of people moving into caring action.
Some of us are:
Feeling too overwhelmed by fear, confusion, anger, or panic to know what to do
Scared to look at what’s going on and not doing anything – which can leaves us feeling guilty and ashamed or defensive and angry at those taking action.
Just throwing ourselves into doing something, anything – which may not be the best and can leave us feeling exhausted afterwards and still wondering if that was enough.
In moments of crisis, reactions like these are very understandable – and very human.
There’s no problem in you having those emotional reactions. Your feelings are neither right nor wrong, not good or bad.
They’re a natural reaction to an overwhelming situation.
The problems start if you don’t care for yourself while having those emotional reactions – and therefore aren’t able to ask for and give support as needed.
And if your reaction to that statement is “But I don’t know how to care for myself when I’m upset and overwhelmed!”, then that’s completely understandable too.
Most of us haven’t been taught or seen modeled how to ground ourselves when overwhelmed and how to care for our underlying pain and needs.
We’ve been unconsciously conditioned by patriarchy, white supremacy, and exploitative capitalism to repress our feelings and invalidate our needs.
That keeps us unconsciously operating in the system and perpetuating it and keeps us from feeling the deep damage its doing to our mind, body, and spirit.
Even if we know how to care for our feelings and needs and regularly do so, there’s always times when we reach our limit and can’t do the very things we know will help us.
That’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.
It just means that you’re human and that you need to be held and supported – like all human beings do.
So here’s some ways you can be held and supported – so you get grounded and resourced enough to show up for your community as your most powerfully supportive self.
I have been heartened by the below article since I've been involved in business in line with what Dr. Hamlin did in Africa. I am well aware that there are still many women who have limited access to basic healthcare including medical imaging, especially in developing and underdeveloped regions. This has been hard going, and yet God will lead our way.
From BBC
No-one came to meet Catherine Hamlin the day she arrived at a tiny airport in Ethiopia in 1959.
More than 60 years later, the news of the Australian gynaecologist’s death at the age of 96 was met with an outpouring of grief in the country she had made her home.
That is because of the work Dr Hamlin - along with her late husband, Reginald - did transforming and, in some cases, saving the lives of tens of thousands of women who had been cast out of their communities.
Treating obstetric fistulas - a preventable injury sustained in childbirth that leaves women incontinent and can lead to other infections - would become her life’s work.
"They're alone in the world, ashamed of their injuries. For lepers, or Aids victims, there are organisations that help. But nobody knows about these women or helps them."
Elinor Catherine Nicholson was born in Sydney in 1924, one of six children. She decided to train to be a doctor because she wanted to help women and children.
After she completed her training, she began work at Crown Street Women’s Hospital, where she met a doctor from New Zealand, Reginald Hamlin.
They were married in 1950, and had a son, Richard, two years later.
'We never came back'
But the two wanted to go and work in a developing nation, and one day an advert in British medical journal The Lancet caught their eye.
"It just read 'gynaecologist wanted in Ethiopia, Addis Ababa'," Dr Hamlin told the BBC in 2016. It was enough to pique their interest, and the couple applied.
"We felt we would like to do something to help people in the world, because we had had so many advantages," Dr Hamlin explained.
The idea was to stay for a couple of years. "But we never came back."
So they set off from Sydney, sending a cable from the middle of the Indian Ocean to let their new colleagues know of their imminent arrival. It didn’t quite go according to plan.
"The cable didn’t get there until three weeks after we did, so there was nobody to meet us."
But they soon settled in, and it wasn’t long before they began to notice a number of women with a condition they had never seen before: obstetric fistula.
"We were touched and appalled by the sadness of our first fistula patient: a beautiful young woman in urine-soaked ragged clothes, sitting alone in our outpatients department away from the other waiting patients," Dr Hamlin later recalled to the Guardian.
"We knew she was more in need than any of the others."
Two million women live with the condition globally, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Without help, many die. Those who survive - like the woman in the waiting room - are left with injuries that leave them incontinent, sometimes heavily.
In Ethiopia many were left with a deep sense of shame. They found themselves banished to the outskirts of their communities, abandoned by their husbands. The stigma and social isolation led some to end their lives.
'I felt so happy'
But the Hamlins knew it was both fixable and preventable - as they told Ethiopia's then ruler, Haile Selassie.
"He said, why do my women get this terrible thing where they can’t control their body waste?" Dr Hamlin told the BBC.
"We said, it is nothing to do with your women, it is to do with your lack of doctors in the countryside when they need to have a Caesarian section."
Mamitu Gashe was one of the women who Dr Hamlin and her husband treated in the early days, when they worked at Princess Teshai Hospital.
It was 1962, and Mamitu had suffered a fistula giving birth to her first child. It was a three-day labour, and the baby did not survive.
Image copyrightGETTY IMAGESImage captionDr Hamlin with Mamitu Gashe in 1994
Like so many other women in Ethiopia, she was left incontinent. But she had a sister in the capital, and her family took her to the city to find help.
It was then they discovered the Hamlins’ specialist ward.
"As soon as I arrived there, they treated me with compassion and I started to feel much better," she told the BBC after she was named one of the BBC's 100 Women 2018.
“They told me that I was not the only one suffering from this, that other women had this. As soon as they said that, I felt hopeful, I felt so happy."
“There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen, and who lived each day in luxury. At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, who was covered with sores. As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his sores.
Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and his soul went to the place of the dead. There, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side.
The rich man shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I am in anguish in these flames.’
But Abraham said to him, ‘My son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. And there is a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.’
Then the rich man said, ‘Please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father’s home. For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so they don’t end up in this place of torment.’
But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.’
The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’
But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded, even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Kudos to a Korean biotech firm which developed coronavirus test kits in three weeks! From CNN:
Before there were any cases of novel coronavirus confirmed in South Korea, one of the country's biotech firms had begun preparing to make testing kitsto identify the disease.
On January 16, Chun Jong-yoon, the chief executive and founder of molecular biotech company Seegene, told his team it was time to start focusing on coronavirus.
That was before the virus sweeping China had been named Covid-19 and four days ahead of South Korea confirming its first case.
"Even if nobody is asking us to, we are a molecular diagnosis company. We have to prepare in advance," he remembered thinking at the time.
Fast forward two months, and South Korea is among the world's worst affected countries, with more than 7,800 people infected, and more than 60 deaths.
But one reason why South Korea might have a higher number of infections than other countries is its aggressive approach to testing.
While some nations have struggled to get enough test kits to diagnose suspected patients, South Korea has provided free and easy access to testing for anyone who a doctor deems needs it. The country'sCenters for Disease Control & Prevention (KCDC) says the country has 118 facilities that can test-- and all report their results to KCDC. To date, the country has tested more than 230,000 people.
It has even rolled out drive-through coronavirus testing facilities, where motorists are met by health workers dressed in hazmat suits.
"Detecting patients at an early stage is very important," South Korea's health minister Park Neung-hu told CNN Monday. "South Korea is an open society and would like to protect the freedom of people moving around and traveling.
"That is why we're conducting mass amount of tests."
But to roll out tests en masse, a country first needs test kits.
Staff at Seegene's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, on March 6, 2020.
A secret weapon
In the basement of Seegene's headquarters in Seoul lies the key to the company's coronavirus success.
There the company houses an artificial intelligence-based big data system, which has enabled the firm to quickly develop a test for coronavirus.
Tests known as assay kits are made up of several vials of chemical solutions. Samples are taken from patients and mixed with the solutions, which react if certain genes are present.
Without the computer, it would have taken the team two to three months to develop such a test, said Chun. This time, it was done in a matter of weeks.
By January 24, the scientists had ordered the raw materials they needed for the test kits. Four days later, they arrived. On February 5, the first version of the test was ready.
It was only the third time the company had used its super computer -- rather than its research and development team working manually -- to design a test. It had previously used the system to make diagnosis kits for urethritis, the inflammation of the urethra.The company was able to design the test using only the genetic details that had been released about the virus, and without having a sample of Covid-19.
And it didn't require his teams to work around the clock. Only a few people needed to be involved, said Chun.
An assembly line at Seegene's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, on March 6, 2020.
The next hurdle was getting the test approved for use. It can take a year-and-a-half to submit the necessary documents to South Korea's authorities and get it approved.
This time, it took a week.
Lee Dae-hoon, who led the team of scientists working to develop the coronavirus test kit, has spent his whole life working on diseases. He's never seen the KCDC approve a test kit so fast.
On February 12, Seegene got sign off, thanks to KCDC expediting the process. It was only then that the scientists only knew for certain that their test worked, as the government had evaluated the test using their own patient samples.
Getting the kit to hospitals
By mid-February, South Korea's coronavirus cases had spiked dramatically. On February 23, the country's President Moon Jae-in raised the country's crisis alert to the highest level.
"We're now at a watershed moment with the novel coronavirus and the next few days will be very critical," Moon said in a televised address. "We need to identify the infected people as soon as possible and prevent the virus from spreading further."
Following that, Chun made a snap decision. His 395 employees would drop all other work and focus on making coronavirus test kits. Production of the company's 50 or so other products temporarily ceased for two weeks.
"Emergency operation means all of the divisions, you have to change your job," he said. "All of our teams are focusing on coronavirus product development."
A worker at Seegene oversees an assembly line where test tubes are being labeled at Seegene's headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, on March 6, 2020.
That means micro molecular biologists with PhDs have had to drop research and development to take a seat on the assembly line.
"Some times (senior scientists are) doing packaging of the product. It doesn't matter how they are educated, it doesn't matter because we are crazy here," said Noh Si-won, the executive director of corporate strategy.
Seegene is one of four domestic companies providing coronavirus test kits in South Korea.
But the company is also facing international demand from about 30 countries -- including Italy and Germany -- some of which are using Seegene's products on patients, Chun said.
At first, Seegene struggled to meet demand, but now it is coping.
The firm is making about 10,000 kits a week and each kit can test 100 patients. So it is making enough to test one million patients each week, at a cost of under $20 per test.
Noh Si-won, the executive director of corporate strategy, said it is the first time he has seen the company manufacturing at this scale.
The company has three months' worth of stock of other test kits, so it can meet demand for its preexisting orders for a month or two. But Chun said it was important for the company to continue making coronavirus test kits -- and the need goes beyond financial gains.
"We have to be providing or contributing one way or the other to figure it out as soon as possible. That's why (we supply to) the whole world," he says.
올해는 부활절이 4월 12일이네요. 부활절 즈음에 수술을 받을 예정이라 올해는 더 특별하게 다가오는 것 같아요. 개인적으로 하나님 새끼고 하나님 특권을 받은 사람이라 하나님께 맡겨야 된다는 것을 알고 있습니다. 카톨릭 신자는 아니지만 고 이태석 신부님을 통해 천주교를 더욱 알게 되었고 John Henry Newman은 영국 신부로 얼마전에 성인으로 추대되었어요. 이 분의 글을 좋아해 본 블로그에도 몇번 올려왔어요. 부활절 관련 그의 글이 많아 와 닿아 여러분과 공유합니다. 개인적으로 요즘 가장 많이 떠올리는 단어는 thankfulness인 것 같아요.
"You do not love yourself better than God loves you. You cannot shrink from rain more than he dislikes your bearing it; and if he puts it on you, it is as you would put it on yourself, for a greater good afterwards. Let us feel what we really are--sinners attempting gresat things. Let us simply obey God's will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our eternal good. Easter day is preceded by the forty days of lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy."
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