 million people. Third, refusal to release the twenty thousand political prisoners who are kept in overcrowded prison cells. Fourth, the Ethiopian government openly claimed to have found a curative medication to COVID-19 and gave false hope. Why does the government make such a fictitious claim? People are unsatisfied with Prime Minister Abiy’s policies, and the government is worried about a possible political uprising. Therefore, to present themselves as if they are doing something right and calm the angry people, they claimed what is far from being true. The public health significance of the fictitious claim is that it does not encourage people to change their behavior.
In Ethiopia, human rights violations are widespread. This terrifying intergenerational violence is not known to the global community because Ethiopia is the most secretive state. There are times when hospitals doctored the death certificates of people killed from torture and named them natural causes or accidents. On several occasions, the Ethiopian government either entirely hide or underreport the magnitude of infectious diseases and famine. For example, in 2017, in Ogden and Oromia region, cholera killed over 776 and infected about thirty-three thousand people. The Ethiopian government denied the existence of a cholera epidemic and named the disease as acute watery diarrhea 30. The Ogden and Oromo opposition groups accused the Ethiopian government of failing to recognize the magnitude of the problem. They explained the failure of the Ethiopian government is part of longstanding discriminatory social policies and practices. It is not the first time the Ethiopian government is accused of being indifferent to the need of people in those regions.
The development of public health is the result of tenacious and protractive efforts 31. Hence, the development of public health infrastructures is dependent on the social, economic, political, cultural, and environmental capacity of people. In turn, those capacities built if the people are freely deciding on their socio-economic, political, cultural, and environmental affairs. At the COVID-19 pandemic, when the global health advice social distancing, the Ethiopian government is holding public meetings and forcing people to attend, in packed halls, for political indoctrination. The Ethiopian government's actions are neglecting and even prudently violating the global health advice of social distancing. Also, historically it is known that the movement of soldiers unwittingly led the spread of infectious diseases from one place to another, at this time, the Ethiopian army is deployed to several regions and harass the supporters of the opposition groups. The harassment of people is creating conditions for internal displacement and generating international refugees.
This paper captured the short history of pandemics in Oromia and made the following conclusions. First, like all other pandemics, COVID-19 is caused by biological agents and propagated in certain social conditions. Developing policy by merely understanding the biology of the agents is not adequate in managing the pandemic and preventing it. It necessitates addressing the pathologic social conditions in Oromia and elsewhere.
Second, in Oromia, there are fertile social conditions for COVID-19 pandemics. In this region, human rights violations are widespread, food insecurity is high, no adequate clean water and housing. This puts the Oromo people at a higher risk of the pandemic.
Third, the Ethiopian security forces are engaged in killings, imprisoning, and harassing civilians going from place to place. Armed conflict and the widespread human rights violations conditioning people to flee from their homes and to displace them locally and make them international refugees.
Fourth, when we understood that public health is “what societies do collectively to ensure the conditions in which people can be healthy,” this means if society wanted to enhance their public health conditions, they need to work collectively. Oromo people are denied the right to decide on their collective rights, i.e., social, economic, political, and cultural rights; they have difficulty in developing the capacity to build public health preparedness. Therefore, advancing collective rights should be seen as the effort the society make in building the capacity of Oromo people their public health preparedness.
Fifth, preventing epidemics requires developing essential public health infrastructures, and in turn, it necessitates building the social, economic, political, and cultural capital. Those capitals effectively built if the rights of people to Self-determination are respected. When the rights of people to freely decide on their social, economic, political, and cultural rights violated, their public health preparedness is curbed and made them more vulnerable to pandemics. As we have observed in the case of Blacks in the USA, the marginalized groups who have been living in unhealthy social conditions would remain vulnerable to the known and unknown diseases.
1. Public health researchers have defined diseases if it is an epidemic or pandemic. The difference between the two terms epidemic and pandemic is how widespread the disease is across the geographical and political border. Bubonic plague, cholera, smallpox, and influenza are the most brutal diseases in human history. Several times the outbreak of these diseases simultaneously occurred across the international borders and fulfilled the criteria to be defined as a pandemic.
Dugassa, Begna F.. "What can we Learn from the Past Deadly Pandemics and Prepare to Curb COVID-19? The Case in Oromia Regional State in Ethiopia." American Journal of Public Health Research 8.2 (2020): 67-76.
Dugassa, B. F. (2020). What can we Learn from the Past Deadly Pandemics and Prepare to Curb COVID-19? The Case in Oromia Regional State in Ethiopia. American Journal of Public Health Research, 8(2), 67-76.
 the child likely needs extra connection and support (or other unmet needs), yet more often their behaviour results in losing their parent's emotional support, kindness and connection.
One of my biggest concerns about this is that aggressive acting out is the parent's signal that their child has become very, very out of balance; that there's some very difficult feelings pushing forward that the child needs emotional support with. They need active listening, empathy and probably to feel supported as they release their tensions through crying, laughter, quality time with parent and more time in nature.
Quite often the child is re-enacting something that's happened to them that they haven't been able to cope with, be it minutes, hours or weeks earlier. Perhaps something happened that was scary for the child like being yelled at or otherwise treated harshly, maybe something they heard and misinterpreted, something on t.v. or at the supermarket or tensions between the parents that unsettled the child greatly. Perhaps the child witnessed or experienced something at a relatives house or school or childcare or perhaps even relating back to earlier traumatic experiences. Even unresolved trauma relating back to birth can sometimes become evoked in a child for reasons that nobody knows or can identify.
The human psyche has a way of pushing unresolved fears, traumas and frustrations to the surface to be resolved at certain times, and is as equipped to heal emotional wounds as broken bones, parents need to learn how to support rather than squash that natural healing process. We don't need to know the source of the pain, we just need to be our child's anchor when they need to release the pain that has been locked inside them. We need to learn to see their acting out to be indicative of them feeling bad, rather than them being bad.
Children can only act well when they feel well. Whether it's phobias, anxiety, defiance or aggression, out of balance behaviours need to be seen as symptomatic of the child being emotionally unwell or out of balance, in a similar way that we view symptoms of illness. It's no coincidence that emotional turbulence so often goes hand in hand with illness in a child. Have you ever been tested to the limits with your child's out of balance behaviour, then to discover they've been coming down with a flu or a tummy bug? Retrospectively you know that your child's coping mechanisms have been at their lowest and they've been feeling really bad, but couldn't express it verbally. At these times, it's a good feeling to know you've been giving your child extra loving support rather extra harsh treatment.
There have been so many times when one of my children were acting out of their normal character in a way that was less than kind, considerate and polite! Yet, in seeing the behaviour as symptomatic and stopping, becoming present, connecting in and really listening, the painful feelings and unmet needs beneath the behaviour have come to light and the real problem within my child has been healed and resolved. There are times when I don't manage to slow down and connect, don't hit the spot and things just get worse until such time as I do land back into the present moment and make myself more fully available. It's only when we become truly available, that children can begin to show, share, express and hence resolve that which is weighing them down.
I don't always identify what the source of the problem was, but once their increased needs for listening, closeness and support are met, their behaviour returns back to balance. Perhaps they've felt sad and lonely because dad has been working away from home a lot. Perhaps they've had some big feelings they hadn't themselves identified about a friendship that's been a bit rocky lately, perhaps they're worried about an upcoming change or are still adjusting to a change in the past. I often find myself thinking, once the history comes to light, how hard it would have been for my child to elicit moralizing lectures at these times - which I have done as well, much to my regret, then later repaired - because kids really are always doing their best considering what they're dealing with inside.
When my daughter completely lost the plot. I remember picking my girl up from school one day when she was six (she's now 11) and from the time we started to drive off, she started really