Covid-19 and the interior

The de facto government has hardly demonstrated its competence in managing the Covid19 pandemic. In fact, by not restraining its supporters from going on the streets and by advertising the holding of a series of public meetings, it is behaving as if it does not take the coronavirus seriously at all. If its shortcomings on the coast are all too apparent, its deficiencies in dealing with the situation in the interior are even greater.

The problem with the hinterland as everyone well knows are its long borders which are not easy to police, and the fact that many Indigenous people living near the frontier have close connections with those on the other side, and regularly travel back and forth. Currently, two of our neighbours, Venezuela and Brazil, have serious virus problems. Venezuela has in addition major economic issues, while its health service is in a state of collapse, so it is hardly surprising that Guyana in company with several other countries on the continent, has become one of the destinations for that nation’s migrants.

As for Brazil, it is seen as the epicentre of the pandemic in South America, and is now the second worst-hit country worldwide after the United States. Churches, Indigenous organisations and others have been warning about the threat to the Indigenous people that the virus represents since they will be particularly susceptible to it, although their pleas have so far fallen on deaf ears in Brasilia. According to the National Catholic Reporter, the Amazonian region is one of the centres of Covid-19, and the infection is not confined to cities like Manaus and Belém, but has spread to many of the villages of traditional people. While Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo are geographically far distant from us, portions of the Amazonian region are not, and as previously mentioned, there has always been considerable traffic across our border with Brazil.

No one should be surprised therefore that persons suffering from Covid-19 have come into this country from neighbouring states. We recently reported that two cases in Itabac, Region Eight, had been imported from Brazil, and a resident of the region, Mr Michael McGarrell, has said that an earlier unconnected case had originated from the Moruca sub-district. According to Mr McGarrell although almost two weeks have passed since the two cases were identified, health officials had put in no appearance in the village to undertake contact tracing and quarantine measures in line with Ministry of Public Health protocols.

If that were not enough, neither of the two people affected is in isolation, and one of them,

a health worker no less, is still going to work with all the implications that has for the spread of the virus. They had been informed of their results by radio, but had not been issued with any instructions as to what they should do. We reported Mr McGarrell as having asked regional officials as to why the protocols had not been followed, and that he had been told there was a lack of resources. “What is the Regional Health Authority doing about it?” he asked rhetorically, and “What is the role of the National [Covid-19] Task Force?” What indeed.

He went on to enquire whether Region Eight was not in Guyana, and said that if they could have done the testing by themselves they would have done it, but that they didn’t have the necessary equipment. Even if one were to accept for the sake of argument that a regional health team could not afford to go into Itabac, there is simply no excuse that the two individuals concerned were not told over the radio that they should be in isolation; that does not require resources of any kind.

This just seems to reinforce the notion, as Mr McGarrell said, that neither the Task Force nor the regional health authorities have come to terms with the seriousness of what could happen in the region. If they had, they would start working with the regional authorities and the local communities to devise a strategy for managing the coronavirus threat, and most important, make the resources available for testing in communities which are so vulnerable to infection from across the border.

The region which has the longest border with Brazil is Region Nine, and that is in no better a situation than Region Eight. According to the South Rupununi District Council two elderly residents of Potarinau who had been in contact with persons who were Covid-19 positive, had died, and the National Task Force had not reported these deaths.

The council asked the health authorities to increase the quantity of testing supplies and to conduct contact tracing. They also urged the Regional Task Force to work with them to prevent the spread of the virus into local communities from Brazil. “The SRDC and our villages, in particular, Potarinau and Sawariwau, have made regular monitoring trips to the 180km border, with little support coming from the Task Force or government, to try and prevent illegal border crossings,” the South Rupununi Development Council said. They also described the Toshaos as being “overwhelmed”.

The council went on to observe that it had made several recommendations to the Region Nine Task Force for a more effective response, but nothing much had been done. It might be observed that they are not the only region with a similar complaint. For its part the Task Force in Region Nine in response has made reference to the lax attitude of residents to the pandemic.

However, there is a problem of a different character in this region. This involves foreigners, mainly Venezuelan women, being smuggled into the Marudi mining area. As things stand, villagers have to allow miners passage through their villages, and this is extended to those who bring supplies to them. There are protocols in relation to this with which those in transit must comply, but according to

Aishalton Toshao Michael Thomas some of the foreigners are wrapped in tarpaulins inside the truck, while others disembark before they reach the gatekeepers, cross the river, and then rejoin the truck further on. In addition, miners continue to ignore the rules implemented by the village councils and are stopping to drink at shops in the villages.

Mr Thomas has said that although they had written to the Ministry regarding the removal of mining as an essential service they had received no response to date. Yet this is clearly an issue which is in urgent need of review at the national level, more especially since Regional Executive Officer Carl Parker has raised an additional concern, pointing out it was not known whether the Venezuelan women were being trafficked. If they were, he said, the region lacked the expertise to deal with the situation.

Apart from that, village leaders have also reported that families in the Rupununi are encouraging their relatives to return from Brazil illegally and then are hiding them when the authorities are alerted. In response to these reports, Mr Parker says a number of drastic measures will be drafted and sent to the National Task Force (NTCF) for approval. Exactly what he envisages those will be was not elaborated on. He went on to say that while some communities were adhering to the requirements, some were not. He told this newspaper, “The biggest worry for everybody is finances; we do not have a budget and everybody needs assistance and we are limited in what we can do to assist communities…”

A shortage of funds and resources is probably at the bottom of many – although certainly not all − of the deficiencies of the coronavirus response in the hinterland. To date, all of Region Nine’s Covid-19 cases have their origins in Brazil. Exactly how such an extended border can be watched is not something which the authorities have appeared to put their minds to. There are any number of places where the river can be illegally crossed, and the Toshaos will have neither the energy nor the resources to monitor it all the time. However, it has to be said again, that if mining in the Marudi and adjacent areas were removed from the list of essential services, transmission of the virus would be impeded.

In addition, the Task Forces both at the National and Regional levels have to be able to implement testing and contact tracing on a substantial scale, and have to be able to mount education campaigns about the virus, and why quarantining, etc, matters. There should be no circumstances, for example, where a health worker is not aware that isolation after a positive test is essential. What they should be seeking to avoid is Brazil’s virus crisis, although they are not so far taking the measures necessary to ensure that.