Unbothered

Dec 11, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – The government appears unperturbed by the continued rise in COVID-19 cases locally. For this week alone, there have been almost 100 new cases.
What this means, is that there is a higher probability, and almost certainty, that before next weekend, there will be three more deaths. This cannot be a heartening development.
Yesterday, eight of Guyana’s 10 Regions recorded positive cases. The two regions which did not record cases yesterday were Regions Eight and Nine and it could well be that there was limited testing done in these Regions.
Yesterday, one in every three persons, who tested, was positive. The day before the positivity rate was below two percent. These numbers are making a mockery of government’s testing programme. It is difficult to understand how the epidemiologists
(if there are any at all) are advising the government on COVID-19, can make sense out of the large daily variations in cases.
COVID-19 infections in Guyana started out in two Regions – Region Four and Seven. It has now gone national. Region Six is now a COVID-19 hotspot. This column had predicted that based on the increases in cases in recent times.
But who cares? The economy is open and saving the economy has assumed greater importance than saving lives, when in fact it should have been the other way around.
Up to now there are no regional strategies being employed. With antigen tests available, there is now the capability to significantly increase testing. But what is the use of increasing testing when there is no attempt to ensure there are regional COVID-19 response units to improve contact tracing.
It can now be inferred that the opening of the economy has been primarily responsible for the increases in cases. If you look at the curve, exhibiting the total number of cases and the total number of new cases, there is striking similarity in its shape between March to now. In the early months, the gradient was less steep, but as the economy reopened most countries had a steep spike in cases.
This trend is not only global but also regional. This is what is happening now in Trinidad and in Jamaica. As the economy has reopened, the number of cases and deaths has increased.
The lesson there is that, it is impossible to keep reopening the economy and expect a decline in cases. It is simply not going to happen given the absence of more effective contact tracing and regional strategies.
The Region with the lowest number of cases is Region Five. The Regional Chairman there believes that the efforts his Region took was responsible for this. He is only deluding himself.
Region Five’s numbers are low because of population density. While Region Six has a lower population density, if one considers not the entire Region but the habitation areas, then Region Five would have the lowest population density. It also does not have the number of businesses and offices, factories and large markets like most of the other coastal Regions. And it has no towns or excessively large communities. All of these place it at a lower risk.
The government continues to be less than transparent about the pandemic. The critical number for the Regions are the number of active cases. The total number of active cases is declining but very slowly on account of the daily new cases. And the government is not making public the number of active cases in each Region because if it did, this would bring pressure on the government to order lockdowns. A lockdown during the peak business season would be unthinkable for a pro-business government.
Over the next week, more persons are likely to die and this is so sad considering that a vaccine is now being rolled out around the world. This evidence suggests, that countries which are able to control the number of cases will benefit more from the vaccine.
So despite the prospects that by next August, greater normalcy will return, it is incumbent that steps be taken now to stem any increase in cases. The longer it takes to stem the increase, the more extended will be the pandemic.
People should try to keep safe. Social distancing is cognitively challenging for many Guyanese. People do not seem to understand that you cannot stand within six feet of another person. They are still doing this and therefore exposing others to the risk of infection.
But who cares? The graph can shoot upwards at a 900 degrees angle. As long as business is okay, the government remains unbothered.

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

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