‘Hard-ears’ does bring heartbreak

Apr 12, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The first week of the partial lockdown has been ineffective. It has no positive effect on the growth of new cases and on the death rate. Stronger enforcement measures, such as a naming and shaming, are needed to make sure all but essential workers stay at home. Unless this is done, we may join the United States where, on Thursday, a person died every minute from coronavirus complications.
The lockdown has not changed anything in Guyana. Guyanese have found ways to continue to go about their normal business, lockdown or no lockdown.
Non-essential businesses are the biggest villains. Many beer gardens are still accommodating patrons to imbibe on their premises. Many haberdasheries, clothing, electronic, electrical and hardware stores, are selling through closed gates. Vendors are still plying their trade on pavements. Private construction is taking place at some locations, according to reports.
People are still interacting in groups. Some minibuses are flouting the regulations. The travelling public are boarding the buses, regardless of how many persons the buses are carrying. Boyfriends are towing their girlfriends on bicycles and motorcycles. Boys and men are still meeting for an afternoon gaff, even though this is not allowed. Recently, there was an incident while some men were playing a game of dominoes.
This is high-class slackness. The partial lockdown is not working. Enforcement needs to be stepped up. The civil powers, namely the police, need assistance. It has to be questioned why the military has not been enlisted to assist both the police and the health sector. This type of assistance is part of their constitutional responsibility.
Guyana was already in problems before the belated announcement of the partial lockdown. The ineffectiveness of the first week of the partial lockdown will set us further back. And we know that means that more persons will get infected and more lives are going to be lost.
PAHO/WHO has done a model with the Ministry of Public Health which estimates some 20,000 infections if nothing was done. If we assume a 5% death rate, it would mean that more persons are likely to die from the coronavirus than were killed in Guyana’s greatest human tragedy – the mass murder suicide of more than 900 American citizens at Jonestown in 1978.
Guyana cannot afford such high mortalities. Stronger action must be taken to have more than 90% of the population at home during the daytime.
People are not getting the idea behind social distancing. The purpose of social distancing is not just to allow for a safe distance between persons. The primary purpose is to reduce the number of persons with whom any one person makes contact within a specified period.
Some people are taking social distancing to mean that if you see someone four times per week, you should only see them one time per week. That is not social distancing. The theory behind it is that transmission of infectious diseases will be reduced if you reduce the number of persons you interact with physically each day. This is different from reducing the number of times you see an individual.
In any one week, you may see someone every day. If that person is infected, it does not matter if you only see that person only one time a week. They can give you the infection based only on that contact.
It has been calculated that if an infected person reduces personal contact by 50%, they would only infect 15 persons per month. Of course, each of those fifteen would infect another 15, and each of those 225 persons another 15. This is called exponential growth.
If, however, personal contact was reduced by 75%, an infected person would infect only 2.5 persons per month, which is the mean per capita for global infections.
On the other hand, without any social distancing, an infected person can spread the virus to more than 400 persons per month. This explains why more than 500,000 Americans have been confirmed as being infected with the coronavirus.
The Math is not wrong. Unless there is stronger enforcement of the partial lockdown, Guyana will become a mass cemetery.
The public should ask themselves a question. Why do they think the local authorities are equipping a hotel to hold 350 coronavirus patients? The authorities know what is likely to happen unless people stay at home. And they know that Guyanese ‘ears-hard’.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)