Episode #66: Dr. Sasa on the COVID crisis in Myanmar
From the moment you begin looking into the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus pandemic in Myanmar, the numbers are simply staggering.
Some projections suggest half of the entire population might be infected within two weeks. Mary Callahan went beyond this in a now infamous article, published by the Asia Times, writing, “One very reputable public health specialist expects that the population will be decimated by at least 10-15 million by the time Covid is done with Myanmar.” And the damage will not be limited to Myanmar alone, reminds Tom Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar. In an interview with The Guardian, he explains that the country is at risk of becoming a super-spreader Covid state that fuels outbreaks across the region, reminding us that one-third of the world’s population live in nations bordering Myanmar.
And gruesome and appalling anecdotes accompany these chilling projections. People braving the monsoon rains wait in lines for days to refill oxygen cannisters, only to end up empty-handed because the military has restricted many companies from providing oxygen to patients without prior approval from military-appointed doctors and ward administrators. With urgent medical equipment either banned from entering the country (and often stolen if it does get in), the death rate has already soared to such an extent that it has outstripped the country’s capability to dispose of the bodies. To deal with this, the one Covid-related action the military has actually taken is to construct bigger crematoria that can burn through 3,000 bodies per day. Yet this still might not be enough, and so Yangon is rife with rumors that garbage incinerators from the Yangon City Development Corporation (YCDC) are being used to dispose of dead bodies.
This approaching, apocalyptic nightmare is the subject of today’s episode, which features Dr. Sasa. The former Special Envoy to United Nations, Dr. Sasa currently serves as the Union Minister of International Cooperation and Spokesperson of the National Unity Government of Myanmar.
Given the urgency of the pandemic’s spread and the health risk it poses to neighboring countries, Dr. Sasa is pleading with the United Nations Security Council to issue what he calls a “COVID ceasefire.” He elaborates: “During that ceasefire period, the oxygen supply will go to the people of Myanmar, and vaccinations must be administered to the people without any military interference.” With this in mind, Dr. Sasa believes that the only hope at this point is for the international community to finally step up. While the Burmese have been left largely to fend for themselves with almost no outside support for half a year, Dr. Sasa notes that two things no person can manufacture on their own, but are essential to combatting this virus: oxygen and vaccinations. “The international community is the only answer. The people of Myanmar have done everything they can, and in fact they are giving their life for the cause of freedom of democracy… The people are crying for oxygen. They cannot breathe it. They say, ‘We cannot breathe anymore!’”
This urgent humanitarian appeal, with such devastating global implications attached to it, would in normal times be quickly addressed in some way by the international community. But these are not normal times. Because of the actions of the military, and geopolitical considerations, there has been little if any response so far, and it is unclear what can be expected. Meanwhile, the situation worsens by the day. The military is not stopping its assault on their own people even as this pandemic reaches epic proportions. Doctors have been in hiding since February, and soldiers have been singling them out for arrest, torture, and even assassination. Dr. Sasa points out how their persecution of doctors continues even now, as soldiers pretending to be sick call out for underground physicians to help them, who are then arrested and “disappeared” when they show up. This has effectively scared away many doctors from helping anyone they do not already know.
For Dr. Sasa, the current devastation also hits him personally. For someone who became a doctor after seeing so many people in his rural community dying of preventable diseases, he is now faced with an entire nation at risk because available medical solutions are being denied to them. “It's all man-made suffering: pain, death, and destruction,” he says.
His frustration also stems from the personal experience of having grown up in a village that was taken over by the military over three decades ago. “In my small village, there’s no electricity, no running water, no school, no hospital… nothing. But military generals sent their soldiers… and since then, until today, it has been 32 years that we have been occupied. And I still remember raping the woman in the village, it was forced labor every day, it was torture. It has been 32 years like that, occupied by the military junta, until today.”
Somehow, in spite of all this needless death and destruction, Dr. Sasa still sees some hope in the form of the vast majority of Burmese valiantly still resisting this military coup. He references the famous slogan used to describe the ultimate sacrifice given by Allied soldiers in World War II, “We gave our todays for your tomorrow.”
“So the people of Myanmar,” he notes, “are sacrificing their life for the future of tomorrow. So that is the reason why we have hope… And our unity is our strength. Myanmar is a multi-ethnic country, a multi-religious country, a multi-cultural country. We are like beautiful garden where so many flowers bloom. It’s very simple. All those flowers should be accepted for their beauty. We all are the beauty of Myanmar, we all are the pride of Myanmar, and we all should be allowed to bloom our colorful flowers in our own distinct way.”