When God wanted to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, according to Bible and Quran accounts, he informed Abraham first. Unlike men, God has never discriminated against anyone when communicating to humankind — I am convinced he speaks through anything. In Amos 3:7, the Bible records that God does nothing without revealing his plan to his people. How does this happen? Job 33:14 has it that God speaks in one way or another, but no one notices.

In this, we understand that God has many ways of communicating to humanity, but we dismiss or limit these ways. And because of humankind’s witlessness, Hosea 4:6 concludes that God’s people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. There is no other time in history when God’s messages have been dismissed like today — especially in the guise of science.

Before the Covid-19 outbreak, premonitions were cast everywhere of an imminent novel infection that would spread throughout the world, ravaging lives and hurting economies.

Primarily, nature speaks to humanity through scientific projections, predictive innovations, and technologies, religious prophesies, revealed knowledge, wisdom, and counsel, as well as advanced intelligence. Mostly, this communication is beyond human conceptualisation but simple and direct.

Proverbial wisdom tells us that ears that refuse to hear accompany the head when it is chopped off. To every religion, warnings were given through prophets, seers, preachers, and teachers among others, regarding Covid-19. However, such revelations entrusted to some of us are used for public displays and chest-thumping. Thus, humanity is denied God’s message.

If we do not see God in it, why didn’t we listen to billionaire Bill Gates in 2015? His famous TED lecture “The next outbreak? We’re not ready” was prophetic. In his talk, he said, “If anything kills over 10 million people in the next few decades, it’s most likely to be a highly infectious virus rather than a war.” His call was that the world should prepare health systems to stop an epidemic and not invest all on military weapons. Did we listen? No. In early 2020, America and Iran were drawing battle lines. Who is laughing now?

As if that is not enough, a 2008 book End of Days by Sylvia Browne predicted that around 2020, a “severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments.” In the wake of the novel coronavirus, the world dismissed the sentiments of the book as mere coincidence.

If Browne’s predictions are weird, why not revisit John M Barry’s 2004 historical book, The Great Influenza. The book chronicles the 1918 influenza that killed millions of people and says the influenza is likely to recur every 100 years. In 2005, the then president George W Bush marshaled the US to prepare for a 1918 flu-like pandemic after reading Barry’s book. The US laid strategies with global warning systems, prompt vaccine technology, and hoards of ventilators and facemasks—but the idea was dropped and forgotten over time.

What about the 2011 American thriller Contagion in which Scott Z Burns presents a prescience of Covid-19 in the 21st-century? Burns consulted experts from the World Health Organisation, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other medical experts when developing the film.

Humanity finds

Of course, we dismiss Hollywood as fiction. Speaking concerning Covid-19 early April this year, Burns opined that if humanity finds accuracy in the film, they should trust the public health experts who are advising them on ways to contain Covid-19.

Moreover, in a 2007 scholarly article, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus as an Agent of Emerging and Reemerging Infection published in the Clinical Microbiology Review, Vincent C Cheng and three others argue that “The presence of a large reservoir of SARS-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic mammals in southern China, is a time bomb”. They added: “The possibility of the re-emergence of SARS and other novel viruses from animals or laboratories and therefore, the need for preparedness should not be ignored.” With these clear warnings, can we blame anyone?

Notably, books of all genres have been written, public intellectuals have engaged the world, prophets and seers have warned, a plethora of films exist and scholarly research has been archived—all calling the adamant world’s attention on a possible outbreak. So, if God has been speaking to humanity through all these ways, and we never heard, then the novel coronavirus will ravage us unchallenged—now and in the future.

Dr Ndonye is Head of Mass Communication Department, Kabarak University