Blame it on the people!

Mar 24, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – March has been a deadly month as it relates to COVID-19 in Guyana. Four persons lost their lives yesterday and it is likely that at least two more persons will perish before the end of the week.
Twenty-one COVID-19 deaths have been recorded thus far in March. This is more than the recorded COVID deaths in December and January, when there were only 13 deaths each. Last month, February, there were 20 deaths.
The government however is not accepting blame for this calamitous situation. Two hundred and twenty (220) persons have died so far, as the government continues to deflect responsibility and blame for this state of affairs.
Accusations were levelled at the former government. The APNU+AFC were accused of under-reporting deaths. Yet, to date, the person making this accusation has not presented a shred of evidence to support this charge.
The political games must stop. When it comes to life and death decisions, there can be no room for political gamesmanship. The government was determined to reopen the economy; regardless of the consequences and it accused the APNU+AFC of low levels of testing, a justifiable criticism, and then it also suggested there was under-reporting of deaths.
The public is also being blamed for being irresponsible and not abiding by the COVID-19 guidelines. But the government is not taking any blame for the flouting of its own regulations.
The government appears to have a penchant for organizing public gatherings. It loves to keep meetings with the public in large outdoor settings. In most instances, the COVID-19 regulations are observed to be in the breach.
A few days ago, there were photographs and video footage in the media about an outreach by the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security. The photographs and footage showed clear evidence of the COVID-19 regulations being observed in the breach.
An event such as this should never have been organized during this time, when infections are fast increasing. These events are aimed at ‘taking services to the people.’ They are window dressing. They reveal problems with the delivery of public services, problems which cannot be fixed by a one-off event of taking services to the people. And it was grossly irresponsible of the Ministry to have undertaken such an activity in the midst of a pandemic, since it is not a sustainable or cost-effective measure.
The government now wants the law enforcement agencies to engage in more stringent enforcement of the COVID-19 regulations. But the government knows about the problems in doing so.
Each afternoon, there is a group of traffic policemen who lurk at the junction of Church and Shiv Chanderpaul Drive, waiting to pounce on motorists who do not dead stop at the junction. On most days there are at least two junior ranks engaged in this form of entrapment.
Yet, the police ranks would observe persons not wearing masks in public and not do anything about it. But they would stand at this particular junction every afternoon, during peak hours to harass motorists for failing to not dead stop.
The law enforcement authorities have been lax in enforcing the COVID-19 regulations. Operation COVICURB started with a blitz and then fizzled out into a drizzle. But what about the responsibility of the government?
Surely, given the rise in deaths and numbers, and the fact that there are more than 900 active cases, should have led to the reintroduction of restrictions which were previously eased. But the government is not in the mood to return to any of the previous restrictions which have since been lifted or slackened.
When there was a spike in cases in Canada and the United Kingdom in December, those two countries went on lockdowns, which effectively put a damper on Christmas celebrations. Germany is now about to go on lockdown. The United Kingdom is only now easing its lockdown. France and Poland are intensifying their lockdown measures. Some states in India are about to go into lockdown mode. The Pan American Health Organization is warning of an increase in COVID-19 infections in the Americas. But in Guyana, the government is blaming the public and not imposing any stricter restrictions.
More than 300 persons are going to die in Guyana at this rate. And when it is all done, there needs to be a Commission of Inquiry to determine just who is advising the government regarding this pandemic and whether the government is listening.

(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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