MY TAKE
DIVIDE AND CONQUER COVID-19?
Image credit: REBECCA ZAAL on Pexels.
By SHAGORIKA EASWAR
A taskforce was recently launched to help raise awareness of the socio-economic barriers that are contributing to the high rate of COVID-19 transmission in the South Asian community in the Region of Peel.
In a report dated November 27 in insauga.com, Shaneza Subhan writes about the network of physicians, lawyers, healthcare professionals, business leaders, and volunteers from all backgrounds and faiths who have come together to launch the Canadian South Asian COVID-19 Taskforce.
She quotes a press release that states that the South Asian community makes up a third of the population in the Region of Peel, but currently represents almost half of the new positive COVID-19 cases reported.
Many members of the South Asian communities are essential workers and provide Canadians with important services in high-risk sectors such as food supply, healthcare as well as transportation and logistics. Many members live in multi-generational homes, have underlying health conditions and are also concerned with the stigma of COVID-19 testing.
Co-founders Dr. Raj Grewal and Dr. Simerpreet Sandhanwalia say the taskforce will focus on reducing the transmission of COVID-19 through evidence-based education, public health advocacy and community outreach, writes Subhan. On the flip side, the taskforce aims to also educate public health officials and policymakers within the Region of Peel in Ontario and the Fraser Health Authority in British Columbia on the drivers of COVID-19 transmission and the challenges faced by South Asian communities.
I read the report and think, good idea, laudable initiative.
After all, we are talking of certain factors that are perhaps unique to the community.
Take multi-generational homes. With three, sometimes four generations under one roof, children never go unattended. They are looked after by loving grandparents rather than being left for long hours at a daycare – where spaces are hard to come by and when available, are prohibitively expensive. Older, vulnerable members of the family are also taken care of at home rather than at extended care facilities, the horrors at some of which are fresh in all our minds.
So, a good thing, overall. Of course, this practice comes with its own challenges when it comes to social distancing or quarantines when one generation goes in and out to work and is exposed to infection, bringing it home to multiple people.
A disproportionately high number of South Asians are also essential workers in high-risk sectors such as food supply, healthcare as well as transportation and logistics.
“So many members of the South Asian community work in essential services and a high proportion of our community does not have the ability to work from home due to the nature of the work,” says Guri Pannu, a strategic leader with the Canadian South Asian COVID-19 Taskforce, in the same article.
Getting the word out about these would go some way in destigmatizing the community and the region, I think.
Also, according to the report, the task force believes the high-risk, marginalized communities can be supported with greater and different modes of testing facilities, improved education for worker safety, enforcement of noncompliant businesses and access to financial support for essential workers who are unable to work as a result of contracting the virus.
So far, so good.
Then I see a report on CBC News filed by Talia Ricci and Muriel Draaisma about a new Hindu COVID-19 Task Force (the italics for emphasis are mine) and do a double-take.
From the report:
Dr. Anju Anand, a physician at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, says: “There’s definitely communication that’s not been accessible for people with English as a second language. With Canada and Peel and Toronto being so culturally diverse, we also do have to look at making resources that are more culturally diverse.”
The group hopes to develop and disseminate “culturally sensitive and culturally appropriate” information for people not able to access existing public health messaging.
It, like the Sikh and Muslim COVID-19 Task Forces, comes under the umbrella of the Canadian South Asian COVID-19 Task Force.
The task forces are divided by faith, but are not faith-based and have a joint website, Dr Anand, founder of the Hindu Task Force is quoted as saying.
In the same report, Dr. Priya Shah, a physician at North York General Hospital, says: “Basically we formed this task force as a way to distil information, take public health guidance and put it into a more language specific manner so our community could understand.”
In an article in the Toronto Star dated December 20, members of the Canadian South Asian Task Force detail the progress made in a few short weeks. Seema Marwaha, Raj Grewal and Sabina Vohra-Miller write that they have “aggressively promoted community testing, created social media posts in several South Asian languages that have gone viral, busted myths that are rampant in our communities, and advocated for the creation of an additional pilot testing site in North East Brampton”.
They are also “working together to extend the hours of existing community sites, acknowledging the barriers of online booking and allow for walk-in appointments to occur, and add staffing who can speak in locally prevalent languages – like Punjabi”.
All of these are much-needed.
But where, then, is the need to divide the outreach by faith?
Aren’t we all in this together?
Is a Hindu resident of Peel region facing different challenges from a Sikh or Muslim one?
These task forces based on religion may have their hearts in the right place, but I fear that instead of presenting the issues as ones faced by many residents of the region, they will subdivide them into religious or cultural issues, and diminish the impact of their advocacy work.
If it is a question of breaking it down into manageable segments, then wouldn’t a regional, area-wise division have worked better? So many households or so many streets under the supervision of so many volunteers? All their concerns and issues being assessed and attended to by a central task force?
Many of us have never had to live through a war in our lives, but listen to those who have and you will realize that the devastation unleashed by COVID-19 the world-over is no less than one in a war. And in a war, everyone comes together to fight a common enemy, they don’t play my-enemy-is-bigger-than-yours.
We like to blame the British Raj for the infamous divide-and-rule policy that pitted Indian against Indian based on faith and cultural affiliation. But why blame someone else when we seem perfectly capable of doing a great job of dividing people ourselves?