G’town City Council is oblivious to the need for public safety and health

As a citizen of Georgetown, a property owner in the ‘Garden City’ and as a businessperson in our capital, it is necessary for me to visit a number of municipal locations regularly to pay my property rates, to apply for various licences and permits and to obtain other municipal services. But my visits to these installations of the Council, leaves me to wonder whether the Georgetown Municipality is governed by its own laws and conventions in contravention of national policies, or whether they are just a rogue organization which doesn’t conform to other people’s ideas of how things should be. In the midst of this world wide pandemic, where countries and cities all over the globe are rushing to put in place systems for the prevention and mitigation of COVID-19, it would seem as though the City Council is oblivious to the need for measures to be put in place to protect the safety and health of their workers, their customers and the public at large.

At this time, when there is a distinct possibility that present in Guyana are the Omicron, Delta and other variants of the deadly Corona virus, and when there is a serious uptick in infections with active cases surging every day to staggering levels, it is alarming to note that Tom, Dick and Harrylall are allowed to casually saunter into any municipal location for whatever reason, without being required to produce a vaccination card, without wearing a mask, without having to wash their hands or engage in any other form of hand sanitization, or without adhering to social distancing recommendations. I think it is all well and good for the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF) to shut down parties and other events that are flouting the Covid-19 regulations, but why don’t they visit and take action at the various municipal markets, that are ‘wet markets’ which have been implicated globally in multiple zoonotic outbreaks and which are bustling and teeming with activity involving hundreds if not thousands of persons daily who are not required to sanitize or be temperature tested before entering the facility, and who are being attended to by vendors who have not been vaccinated nor are they wearing masks.

I have spoken to numerous employees of the Georgetown Municipality, and with the exception of one, all the rest say that they are not vaccinated nor do they have any intention of being vaccinated as there is no requirement by the administration of the Council for them to be. They said that they are not provided with masks, sanitizers or other such personal protective equipment against the virus any more even though they are required to be out there every day policing the city, managing solid waste, looking after food hygiene, cleaning the markets, drains etc.. One has to wonder how this is even possible with the Council having an entire Public Health Department employing a Medical Officer, Environmental Health Officers, and a Health and Safety Officer. This state of affairs does not auger well for the health and wellbeing of the city and needs to be addressed at the double.