If we do not deliberately harvest reasonable ounces of hope from available sources, then we would be completely swarmed by the steadily increasing news of those infected by the corona-virus in Nigeria. We would be drained by feelings of apprehension, fear and uncertainty following news of the calibre of some of those who have been infected by the virus.

If we do not refill our depleting reserves of hope, then we would have nothing left in our tank to continue the marathon. For fighting the coronavirus is nothing but a marathon, and not a quick dash. And if we expend valuable and somewhat scarce energy pointing fingers and singing dry songs in praise of karma we only complicate the condition of our own energy reserves. The sages warned a long time ago that we must never rejoice when those we do not like come into some kind of misfortune or setback.

Kindly look again at the numbers above. Of course, no death is unimportant. And every soul is valuable. But the number of those who have recovered from the virus compared to the number of those infected, and those who have died, give some shades of hope.

There are so many questions posed by the above table but the chiefest must be the following:

• What did those who have recovered do to get rid of the virus seeing that there is no cure as at yet?
• Did they recover following self-isolation or did they recover while in government hospitals?
• How long did it take them between when they were infected and when they were given a clean bill of health?
• Might not scientists, investigators and the army of researchers looking for a cure for the virus derive important motivation from these numbers as they take their investigations further?
• Might not those already infected and receiving treatment get some hope when they see the statistics of those who have recovered compared to those who have died?

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