The COVID-19 pandemic is becoming more serious

Dec 15, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – The Ministry of Health is now saying that in keeping with the protocols developed by COVAX, frontline workers will be the first to receive the vaccine when it becomes available next year. It was not stated when next year, but at the rate at which things move within that Ministry, it could be anywhere from January to next August.
In the interim, people have to remain safe. The least the Ministry could have done was to use whatever databases it has to identify high-risk individuals or at least start a registry of them so that two things can happen. The first is that intense monitoring of these persons take place so that in the eventuality of them contracting the coronavirus, treatment can be immediate. The second is that such a database will help when the distribution begins.
Guyana is fast approaching 6,000 cases. Given the smallness of the population and the still low levels of testing taking place, one can safely multiply this number by 10 to determine how many have and have had the virus. This would mean that more than 60,000 are infected locally, the majority of whom may be asymptomatic. This would mean that Guyana’s actual infection rate could be as high as one in every five persons.
No one has to date indicated just who are the epidemiologists advising the government. But clearly by now someone should have realized that in terms of new cases, Guyana’s per capita rate is almost double that of Canada, parts of which are now in a lockdown.
But while places like Germany is going into lockdown, Guyana is opening up more and more. The Minister of Health is advising the public to limit window-shopping. But he appears oblivious to the actions of some of his colleagues who continue to engage with groups of members of the public.
Why are the elderly being brought out to meet with Ministers in Essequibo? Why are young children being brought out to receive gifts? Give it to the parents! At Wales Primary School, young children were seated three in a bench and it is one of those short benches. The photographs do not lie. Where was the COVID-19 distancing rules? The same thing happened in Patentia.
What sort of recklessness is taking place? Parents should not be condoning this. No gift is worth the life of a child and therefore parents should keep their children away from these gift-giving exercises.
Why are these things happening? How is it that the average citizen is being urged not to do any window-shopping but Ministers are photo hopping all over the country?
Guyana’s COVID-19 numbers are not reassuring. Daily new cases are high and for every 100 cases, it can now be safely predicted that at least three of those are going to die. The positivity rate is still high. It is still above 17 percent despite the massive increase in testing. It needs to be brought down to under one percent before the public can feel relieved. But this is not going to happen unless there is mass testing.
The antigen tests are now available. They allow for quicker results. It means that the daily number of tests should be more than 500 every day. This will give the authorities a more accurate estimate of the total infection rate in the population. Given the long time that the rate has stickled around 20 percent, it is safe to assume that one in every five Guyanese are at risk. This would place us about the most high-risk countries for infections.
The indigenous community has been disproportionally affected and to date we have heard nothing from the Minister of Amerindian Affairs. There needs to be far more testing taking place in these communities, which because they are isolated means that, the infected cannot easily access medical services.
The time has come for the blow-blow parade to cease. We are dealing with a local outbreak that is worrying. People are dying and the vaccine is not going to be administered to the elderly, probably until next February. God help this country!

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