Sometimes our close proximity to the rich and powerful USA, skews the judgment of Jamaican politicians, to the detriment of the taxpayers.
Take our response to this Coronavirus. Granted it is a brand new virus and as we have so few scientists, we have to be guided by their research.
The fact is this coronavirus has been creating havoc in Europe, the USA the colder climes, and they correctly adopted the course of locking down their economies until they could understand how to deal with the new, very contagious scourge. And our government has been very careful as we also had no clue what was happening and where it would end up. But things are very clear now so it is time we allowed common sense to prevail.
At the time of writing, this is the current situation. In the USA, they have identified approximately 1.4 million cases of the virus, and approximately 82,500 persons have died. That put their death rate from the virus at just over 5.5%. Scary statistic indeed.
On the other hand, Jamaica has had 502 confirmed cases, and only 9 deaths, a death rate of only 1.79%. The even better news is that while the government prepared 350 beds in anticipation of the virus badly affecting us, only 16% have had to be used.
Now I don't know the reasons for our extremely low death rate in the face of this virulent virus but was told by a doctor that the BCG vaccine which we got as children to protect us against TB, maybe a factor. All that is still being studied but the fact remains, the virus is not as devastating in our country as is it is up north.
Let us put it into perspective further too. According to the World Health Organisation, in 2019, Jamaica had 339 cases of dengue causing 6 deaths from the disease. That is 1.76 percentage, just about the same as the death rate from coronavirus but I never saw anyone panicking about the incidence of that disease in our country which has no end of mosquitos!
The reality of life is that diseases will always be with us. We have a responsibility to try and understand them and manage them, not allow them to manage us. We also need to chart our course and stop mimicking the USA at every turn.
While in the rich USA, they can afford to pay people to stay home, far too many of our people have no such safety net.
And our country cannot afford to give them one.
In fact, let's not forget that 17% of Jamaicans live below the poverty line, and most have to "hustle" every day to put food on the table. I know many of us hate the term hustle as it connotes illegality, but I don't think the majority are involved in illegal activity, for hustling can involve anything from begging to selling sweets at the school gate, all activities which are legal and which prevent a host of children from going to bed hungry every night.
As to the effect on our education. The last figure I could find about internet availability in Jamaica is only 53% of the population, so talk of distance learning here is wishful thinking.
We, therefore, need to sit up, take stock of our own situation deal with our own realities and stop following the USA, for the cost of any kind of prolonged shutdown, including that of our beaches and rivers is just too expensive for us.
Since it all came from abroad, naturally we need to continue screening all entering our ports and quarantining where necessary. To make potential visitors feel confident and get our tourism industry rolling once again, we need to certify those working in the industry as being COVID free. We should also ramp up public education and put in place all the preventative measures including the best Hygenic practices, use of masks, and social distancing. They will help curtail the spread of the virus which in my books quite benign when compared to the devastating effect locking down the economy is going to have on the poor.
I think we should also discuss maintaining some curfews, not so much to manage the virus but to help us dealing with crime, for in my book, that the real scourge in our society.
Take our response to this Coronavirus. Granted it is a brand new virus and as we have so few scientists, we have to be guided by their research.
The fact is this coronavirus has been creating havoc in Europe, the USA the colder climes, and they correctly adopted the course of locking down their economies until they could understand how to deal with the new, very contagious scourge. And our government has been very careful as we also had no clue what was happening and where it would end up. But things are very clear now so it is time we allowed common sense to prevail.
At the time of writing, this is the current situation. In the USA, they have identified approximately 1.4 million cases of the virus, and approximately 82,500 persons have died. That put their death rate from the virus at just over 5.5%. Scary statistic indeed.
On the other hand, Jamaica has had 502 confirmed cases, and only 9 deaths, a death rate of only 1.79%. The even better news is that while the government prepared 350 beds in anticipation of the virus badly affecting us, only 16% have had to be used.
Now I don't know the reasons for our extremely low death rate in the face of this virulent virus but was told by a doctor that the BCG vaccine which we got as children to protect us against TB, maybe a factor. All that is still being studied but the fact remains, the virus is not as devastating in our country as is it is up north.
Let us put it into perspective further too. According to the World Health Organisation, in 2019, Jamaica had 339 cases of dengue causing 6 deaths from the disease. That is 1.76 percentage, just about the same as the death rate from coronavirus but I never saw anyone panicking about the incidence of that disease in our country which has no end of mosquitos!
The reality of life is that diseases will always be with us. We have a responsibility to try and understand them and manage them, not allow them to manage us. We also need to chart our course and stop mimicking the USA at every turn.
While in the rich USA, they can afford to pay people to stay home, far too many of our people have no such safety net.
And our country cannot afford to give them one.
In fact, let's not forget that 17% of Jamaicans live below the poverty line, and most have to "hustle" every day to put food on the table. I know many of us hate the term hustle as it connotes illegality, but I don't think the majority are involved in illegal activity, for hustling can involve anything from begging to selling sweets at the school gate, all activities which are legal and which prevent a host of children from going to bed hungry every night.
As to the effect on our education. The last figure I could find about internet availability in Jamaica is only 53% of the population, so talk of distance learning here is wishful thinking.
We, therefore, need to sit up, take stock of our own situation deal with our own realities and stop following the USA, for the cost of any kind of prolonged shutdown, including that of our beaches and rivers is just too expensive for us.
Since it all came from abroad, naturally we need to continue screening all entering our ports and quarantining where necessary. To make potential visitors feel confident and get our tourism industry rolling once again, we need to certify those working in the industry as being COVID free. We should also ramp up public education and put in place all the preventative measures including the best Hygenic practices, use of masks, and social distancing. They will help curtail the spread of the virus which in my books quite benign when compared to the devastating effect locking down the economy is going to have on the poor.
I think we should also discuss maintaining some curfews, not so much to manage the virus but to help us dealing with crime, for in my book, that the real scourge in our society.
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