Unimpressed by gov’t response to COVID-19
Dear Editor,
The coronavirus a serious crisis and our response has been very shabby. The government has moved to implement draconian measures, the legal foundation of which raises a number of concerns, since we exist in a political maelstrom due to the recent elections. And this puts fear into the minds of people in a country famous for political reprisals.
The government has reverted to Guyana’s oldest law, the Public Health Ordinance – an archaic 40’s legislation, which was omitted from Guyana’s legal system in 1972, but which is allowed to remain effective by virtue of a special provision in the Law Revision Act which allows for certain omitted laws to be valid even though they were omitted from updates.
The Public Health Ordinance of British Guiana deals primarily with sanitation matters. Remarkably, Mr. Granger has now invoked it as the principal legal instrument to combat the coronavirus threat.
In an extraordinary act, the President issued a Direction under the said Public Health Ordinance Cap. 145 which was published as a Legal Supplement in an Extraordinary Gazette of March 16, 2020. The direction represents a case of monstrous overkill totally unnecessary in the current situation of an attack by a virus. It directs the Minister of Public Health [which we don’t have] to speedily bury the dead, remove, disinfect and destroy the personal effects, goods, buildings and any other material or anything exposed to infection from the disease. The draconian laws these people dug up are more appropriate to diseases like the bubonic plague and cholera than to COVID 19. All of this is nonsense, the COVID 19 is a virus, it dies if exposed to the air for longer than 1419 hours, in Guyana it could be a very much shorter period since our warm conditions have in my opinion probably been more help than this government in protecting us. Also as funny as it may seem the aftermath of the March 2 elections which caused a drop in international incoming aircraft traffic, from heavily infected locations abroad especially New York City, probably protected the Guyana population from the onslaught of infections from people infected in colder regions coming here. I say this because these people who say they will oversee this matter are singularly unprepared to deal with the situation, if in fact a crisis materializes in the coming weeks.
It is for example with complete astonishment that I read that a family whose members subsequently displayed symptoms of having contracted the virus, were contaminated by a close family member who ultimately died from complications associated with the Corona Virus 19. Not only were they not immediately quarantined, self-imposed or otherwise or tested, they actually were allowed to hold a wake for her!! In view of our total incompetence we have been indeed lucky so far.
On Saturday night I was just driving around taking a break from the self-inflicted quarantine, I have been forcing on myself, and I saw bars in Alberttown and other areas and BBQ outlets with dozens of people fighting to get service in Georgetown. Then these dictators who want to get rich from the oil we have discovered, found and have used the ridiculous Public Health Ordinance which incredibly not only directs the Ministry of Health, but also the Minister of Education, Minister of Finance and Minister of Citizenship. Making it one of the most powerful directions ever issued. No one seems worried that legally we are not currently supposed to have ministers. No attempt at closing certain types of businesses which can enhance communicating this deadly disease, which we are completely unprepared to handle, has been made.
We all agree that serious times call for serious action, but medical professionals have questioned some of the strategies employed by the Ministry of Public Health, as do I. On March 20, a letter written by unnamed medical professionals was published in the Stabroek News. The letter, while praising some of the early actions taken by the public health authorities in response to the COVID 19 threat, raised some concerns about government’s published powers of response.
The medical professionals noted that at present, there are only 2 ventilators in the public system and efforts are being made to procure a further 12. Why then is the government moving to mandatory quarantining of all persons even those who are only suspected cases to occupy facilities which are already limited, only serious cases should be hospitalized since the experience so far from abroad tells us that if the virus prevails because of ill preparedness, the onslaught can very easily overwhelm medical facilities, especially here where in fact there are not sufficient preparations, and only a few days ago the former Minister was asking for a US$5 Million loan to prepare us, now, weeks after the virus is upon us. If the World Bank gives this loan in view of promised US sanctions, I would be very surprised.
Recently I had placed a letter extolling the virtues of Mia Mottley of Barbados and her wonderful record of leadership, in pursuing that story of her economic successes, I discovered that this lady had set up two locations where the persons infected with the virus could be placed in isolation, she not only had the two locations prepared many weeks ago to serve any serious cases, but that such facilities will inevitably contain people with other afflictions, and so they bought portable dialysis machines and installed operating facilities in case people needed surgery when in isolation. This is COVID-19, since 18 went before since 2003 when SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) appeared, we knew that these viral mutations will be a huge problem in time, and we as a nation did not have leaders who foresaw such a situation to act to protect us.
But this for me is not a politically motivated outrage, I am a 74 year old man with Congestive Obstructive
Pulmonary Disorder [COPD] diagnosed by Max Hanoman in 2007 and confirmed by doctors at Mount Hope 13 years ago, and was so frightened by the diagnosis I immediately stopped smoking. But I am still a man of advanced age with compromised lungs living in a country with completely incompetent medical facilities and policies in the current situation which can affect me and others like me in an attack by a virus which specifically targets the lungs. So please forgive my more than usual bluntness.
Yours faithfully,
Anthony Vieira