The Guyanese Donald Trump

Aug 20, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The Guyanese President is beginning to sound a lot like the United States President, Donald Trump. There appears to be greater concern with opening the economy rather than implementing a lockdown in order to suppress and contain the spread of the coronavirus epidemic
It took more than two weeks, and a firestorm of criticisms about its handling of the COVID-19 epidemic, for the government to finally announce its “all-encompassing” and “multifaceted” response plan. Unfortunately, the government response is far from inspiring and definitely not comforting at all.
The President spent an inordinate amount of time addressing the financial response to the epidemic as well as announcing measures for increased testing, improving testing capacity, personal protection and equipment and mobilization of household relief. But far less time was devoted to the very element which the President said was of paramount importance – the safety and health of citizens.
No new or intensified social restrictions were announced nor, more importantly, were any detailed measures announced to suppress and contain the spread of the virus locally. This is a fatal defect of the “all- encompassing” and “multifaceted” plan.
The government seems obsessed with emphasizing financial relief measures for the private sector so as to kick-start the economy. But it appears far less concerned with stemming the rapid growth in cases which have taken place over the past two weeks.
The numbers are frightening. In the more than two weeks since the new government was sworn-in, the number of confirmed cases have increased from 474 to 776. And over the past four days, there have been a staggering seven deaths, including four yesterday. The majority of those who died over the past four days were unaware of their test results because of the waiting time between testing and results.
Five of the seven persons who died over the past four days did so without knowing that they had tested positive for the virus. The health system failed them. And the PPP/C should not be asked to accept the full blame for this because they inherited a dysfunctional response from the previous administration. But it was their duty to move with greater alacrity to correct what they described as a disjointed response.
A most glaring omission from the President’s all-encompassing and multifaceted response plan has been the treatment protocols. This is a matter which should have been on the front-burner since a number of favourable drugs and treatment regimens have emerged in recent months.
It took a full two weeks to come with this response plan which is out of sync with the realities of the epidemic. And in those two weeks, the situation has gotten worse and a total of seven persons have died.
Region 4, the largest Region in the country, has seen a dangerous spiralling of cases. There have been 60 new confirmed cases in this Region over the past week. Yet, the government seems more interested in keeping the economy open rather than implementing stricter social restrictions. It is time for Region 4 to revert to the social restrictions, which were implemented earlier this year.
The President spoke about not opening schools in September. But he announced no return to work-from-home or rolling back the opening of non-essential businesses. Surely, the need to suppress and contain the transmission of the virus has to be the number one priority. Yet, there was a palpable deficit of measures announced.
Great attention is being paid, however, and commendably so to ensuring a reduction in the waiting time for test results. For months ago, the APNU+AFC administration indicated it had the capacity to test 96 persons daily, including 48 on an eight-hour shift.
It appears however that little was done to significantly boost testing capabilities to cater for a massive surge in the number of cases. At present, it is said that a total of only 140 cases can be handled locally. This is woeful and one has to ask why concerted steps were not taken to increase the testing capacity to beyond 400 per day, especially considering that there was a model which predicted as many as 1200 cases. At the rate at which the virus is spreading, Guyana is going to surpass that 1200 figure. And this will mean more than an estimated 120 persons are likely to die.
The government has responded smartly to this problem but it will take at least another two weeks for the waiting time to be reduced from nine hours to two hours. Those persons who died this week without knowing their infection status would not have minded waiting nine hours. Days passed and the results were not ready. And these persons died.
There is only one proven way of suppressing and containing the COVID-19 epidemic and that is a total lockdown. The government should seriously contemplate doing this so as to arrest the present rapid community spread.
There is only one business, which is going to profit if the spread of the virus is not contained and that is the funeral business.

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