Pandemic – one year later

Mar 14, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – For one long year, the going has been hard and heavy, sometimes unbearably tough for many Guyanese. Many times, for many more Guyanese, it had to have felt like the going was all downhill, and with nothing to hope for, with no end in sight. These are some of the realities that were part of the coronavirus pandemic one year endured, a year later.
To be out of work, due to controls in place and the closed doors of many places of employment, was the dreary lot of willing Guyanese workers. The businesses, large and small, and mom and pop, which are part of the cottage industry, all suffered from forced shuttering or steep falloff in business demand. Citizens were not earning, which meant they did not have any spending money, not even for the basics. Those who depended upon a steady helping hand from overseas found themselves empty-handed, since those generous friends and family relations were themselves under siege, and in many instances without. It was part of the harrowing picture and circumstances of many Guyanese struggling to make ends that were far apart and obstinately resistant meet, to put food on the table, to buy recommended nutritional ingredients (vitamins and citrus products, and so forth) to fortify against the brutal pandemic assaults.
Though the fears came and intensified, particularly from a lack of knowledge, and an accompanying lack of confidence, Guyanese dug deep and, for the most part, managed to survive. They did this through a bruising and depressing elections season that looked like it would never end, with stalemate after stalemate, and raging and rising passions. And, of course, the now notorious national prejudices that bedevil this society.
Those who didn’t have enough bread managed to get by on a little water to carry them somehow to the next day. Those who found themselves for many a long month without so much as manageable scraps of sustenance were able to find the spirit within to flow with whatever came, and rise above the dragging dangerous tide. Once again, countless citizens of this country manifested a keen survival instinct. It was that when the chips were down, or they were not any around, and the going was at its toughest, that our fellow citizens rose to the occasion. They survived.
Guyanese showed a remarkable resilience that spoke to those elements that are such an inseparable segment of the individual and national character. When there was nothing, they found something. When there was no leadership, they pulled themselves up by the bootstrap, and walked like the men and women that they can be. They have done so before under different leaders (who lost sight of what selfless leadership is supposed to be all about); under different, but always, harshly demanding economic conditions (that knocked the stuffing out of them); and under grim prior circumstances (when there was only darkness, even at that most favourable hour immediately after the break of dawn). The COVID-19 pandemic assaults and batteries left Guyanese wounded, of that there can be no doubt. But it also indicated to them, and the world, that they will not be beaten into the ground. Not by a powerhouse pandemic that just will not go away, not by pitiful political leaders who always seem to be here, and not by the curses that come from both because of the oil that makes men go mad with greed and utter senselessness.
There has been some relief, thanks to more facilities, more space to operate from government, some new government thoughtfulness, and some blessings from above. We have not been spared, but we have not been punished into a pulp. We stand upright on our own two feet, looking ahead, planning to go forward amidst more threatening waves and alarming variants. But going ahead we must, since there is no other option. For to be content to be at a standstill is to invite the worst of vulnerabilities, the most potent failures, both personal and national.
We can do more, and government can do more. And we must press both ourselves and the government to deliver in the crunch. This is the big test as we go into the second year of this most stubborn of viruses. The biggest tests are still around and ahead, and they will test to find out what we are made of, how we will be. We have to be sensible, if we are going to be strong. We must be wise, if we are to have a chance to overcome. And we must be unrelentingly prudent, if we are going to get the best out of ourselves, and those in government who lead us somewhere, hopefully forward and upward.

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Pandemic – one year later

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