The COVID-19 situation is now dire!

Sep 01, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

---

Kaieteur News – The month of August is the perfect example of how the government is taking one step forward and two steps backwards in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on statistics published by The Citizenship Initiative – which is doing a better job than the government in providing useful information on local cases and deaths – there were deaths and more confirmed new cases in August than they were in the month of July.
August represented a retrogression for government’s management of the pandemic. It broke the trend of declining deaths between May and July.
This has to be worrying considering that more than 60 percent of the adult population has received at least one vaccination and more than 30 percent are fully vaccinated. The fact that the elderly continues to dominate the deaths even though they were the first who were eligible to be vaccinated shows the carelessness of our people and the failure of the government to prevent these deaths despite the claim by the Vice President that he was told that 82 percent of those above the age of 62 years have been vaccinated.
A few days ago a retired magistrate died while awaiting treatment at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. What was more disconcerting however was to learn that his family had been calling the hotline and were advised to have him use Vitamin C and Paracetamol tablets.
This man was 88 years old. By now those managing the local pandemic should have red flagged a person of this age. Once he was confirmed as having contracted the virus, and given his age, he should have been recommended for hospitalisation especially given that he was not fully vaccinated.
The authorities need to get their act together because there is no way that an 88-year-old man, who was not fully vaccinated, should have been allowed to convalesce at home. His case should have been flagged as one requiring immediate hospitalisation.
It was also reported – how true is not clear – that the retired magistrate had been going to receive his second dose but was told on more than one occasion that supplies had been exhausted.
It is now known that Guyana and other countries are having difficulties receiving the second dose of the Sputnik V vaccine. The supplier should be called to account and should be asked to refund the sums paid because the supplies are not forthcoming. Last week, there was a 5,000 doses shipment and this week there has been another 5,000 doses. This is totally unacceptable and it is time that the terms of the contract for the vaccination be made public so that it can be known what provisions have been made for situations, such as what exists now, where supplies are not being received as expected.
Guyana needs to read the riot act to the suppliers. It needs to be made clear that no further business of any kind will be done with that company or any of its associates or for that matter with the country in which it operates until the supply-chain problems are remedied.
But, as this column has lamented more than once, vaccination cannot be the only limb on which this pandemic is being fought. There needs to be a regional approach to the pandemic and different rules ought to apply to different areas.
Given the present number of new cases in Regions Three and Four, a strong case can be made out for the closure of non-essential services in these two regions for one month. In the month of August these two Regions accounted for more than 70 percent of the total cases in the country.
Now this alone suggests that what is needed is for tighter measures to be applied to these two Regions because if the caseloads for these two regions can be checked it will reduce substantially the number of cases nationally.
But this is not going to happen because the government is pro-business and the business class have them by the armpits. But given the present situation, unless something dramatic is done about infections in Regions Four and Three, this pandemic will drag on way into 2022.
The government has been proceeding with its one-track solution – vaccination. In order to encourage vaccination, it is imposing requirements that persons doing business with some government agencies must be fully vaccinated or seek the services through appointment. Workers have been denied access to some government workplaces unless they are vaccinated or produce a negative PCR test.
The Private Sector Commission has supported what the government is doing. But how many private sector agencies are following suit. Or is it a case in which the public sector is having to shoulder the most burdens in terms of restrictions.
The government should equalise these burdens and require that all private sector workers be vaccinated before they can enter the workplace. After all, what sense will it make to place restrictions on public sector workers when the private sector is allowed to do its own thing.

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

---

---