“2021 – HOPE YEAR AND VACCINATIONS”
Colin Croft ventures off on an exercise trip.
By Colin EH Croft
Kaieteur News – 2021 is easily the most hopeful year that most people now living anywhere would have experienced, after the severely hopeless and dangerous 2020, because of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Already, nearly 120 million people have been infected with Covid-19 worldwide, with about 3 million dead.
1946 must have been the last hopeful year, after the end of World War II, a war that accounted for more than 75 million deaths. Most of us were not alive in 1946, so this Covid-19 Pandemic of 2020 and 2021 is the most horrific event that most people would now be alive having experienced.
In the United States of America alone, there are nearly 30 million cases of Covid-19, with almost 550,000 people dying from Covid-19. The State of Florida, where I live, has already had nearly 33,000 deaths.
The Caribbean has been extremely lucky, and determined, in some cases, not to be afflicted as badly by Covid-19 as other parts of the world. Some Leaders, such as Ms Mia Mottley from Barbados and Dr. Keith Rowley from Trinidad and Tobago, has done an outstanding job in trying hard to close their countries. With the very porous borders of Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, and with Brazil, Venezuela and Suriname a short walk or boat trip, only God’s luck and blessing has saved our Caribbean from the greater danger of Covid-19.
My questions must be directed to CARICICOM. How come countries like Barbados, Guyana and St. Kitts, individually struggling to get the much needed vaccines for their residents, and CARICOM hadn’t done this? Why didn’t CARICOM go begging for some authority or government, including a very kind Indian Government, to ask for only 15 million vaccines, to cover the 7 million Caribbean people; twice? Can someone explain exactly what CARICOM is for?
2021 is also a good year for me. It commemorates my 50th year of professional employment, a journey that began in June 1971, thanks to Rudy Luck, the then Principal of Central High School, and Basil McGowan, then Principal of Commenius Moravian School, at Anira Street , Queenstown, Georgetown, where I started as an inexperienced but eager 18 year old Maths Teacher. I spent two very exciting years there.
WHO vaccine certificate.
This started my professional journey; as Professor, Air Traffic Manager, Professional International Cricketer, Commercial Pilot, Engineer, Flight Manager and Sports Journalist, among many other opportunities. Fortunately for me, I have never been unemployed in my life for the past 50 years.
2021 is also the fiftieth anniversary of my first ever flight, in August 1971, on a cricket tour, to Jamaica, to play in the West Indies Under-19 Youth Cricket competition, representing Guyana. Having already represented Guyana in 1970, I was one of the senior and experienced players in 1971.
My first flight was on the British Overseas Airways Corporation (now BOAC – British Airways) Vickers VC-10, an absolutely beautiful aircraft, which once held speed records for Atlantic crossings for underground jet travel; 5 hours and 01 minutes; only to be broken by the prestigious Boeing B-747 Jumbo, 41 years later, clocking that journey around 4 hours and 56 minutes, but with a tail tail that was a storm!
My first airplane cruise also seriously reduced my desire for international flight and travel. Apart from piloting aircraft in reality, I have been extremely fortunate to have traveled so far to almost 75 countries worldwide. Russia, Japan, Koreas and China are still waiting.
2021 offers so much hope for recovery from this powerful covalent covid-19. There are already three vaccines in use in the USA, and a few more worldwide, miraculously available after only one year of development, given that most vaccines take ages to develop, test, and ‘ u propagate.
Covid-19 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, with two doses, with 95% efficacy; Moderna NIAID vaccine, also with two doses, also with 95% efficacy; and Johnson & Johnson vaccine, with only one dose, and with 75% efficacy; all now available here in the USA.
If President Joseph Biden gets his way, all of the nearly 330 million legal people in the U.S. could, if they want to, be fully vaccinated by May or June 2021. That is Big “ask”, but certainly things are moving upwards, with great hope. Life as we know it will continue, but with vaccines!
My personal experiences with Covid-19 continued for 48 of the most distressing, unexpected and scary hours I have ever spent in my 68 years. On the weekend before my 67th birthday; Sunday, 15 March 2020; We can’t get out of bed. For some reason, simply the two legs could not move. I also had fever and headache. Being scared put it very lightly. I knew right away that I was infected with Covid-19. Fortunately for me, those symptoms only lasted about two days. No one deserves such fear !!
It turns out that one of my associates, at my employer at Orlando International Airport, was married to a Wuhan national, in China’s Hubei Province, where the Covid-19 allegedly started. She had apparently visited her ancestors home very early in 2020, and, unintentionally, brought back that deadly virus, to infect many of us, as my apparent inability to be very mobile about weekend, in one of the milder afflictions. I can really suggest that I’ve never been so scared in my life. I, for one, welcome the vaccines.
On 08 February and 01 March 2021, I received my two shots of the Pfizer vaccine, courtesy of the magnificently organized Seminole County and State of Florida Health Departments. When Nurse Jackson put that 2nd needle in my left arm, it lifted my heart, even though I still use masks and everything else as well. To date, no responses have been received from those vaccines. But vaccines are not new to me anyway.
From 1958, as a 5-year-old, up to my 68th birthday in 2021, I have taken every vaccine that has either been multiplied or suggested. I’m still very much alive and very good indeed. Everything, from the top of my head to the toes of my toes, seems to be working amazingly well so far. I have never needed anything about Viagra, Cialis or Levitra. I still walk or run about two hours three times a week, and cycle for about 60 kilometers twice a week. Isn’t life grand? Take the vaccine!
You name it, I’ve had the vaccine: Yellow Fever, Cholera, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Smallpox, Chickenpox, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Typhoid, Polio, Influenza (Annual), Cortizone for muscle repair, dental photos of both Cocaine (yes, dentists used that in the 1960s and 1970s), and Novocaine. I have now boosted them all by getting the two-dose Pfizer vaccines. I’m still very much here, alive and quite well at 68!
Our parents, especially parents of African descent, tried to kill their children with love, because we all know that food and love go together. They simply gave us too much salt. They added salt to everything. Globally, heart attacks are the leading cause of death of men of African descent. Too many salt and fat foods!
I remember, when playing cricket for Guyana and the West Indies, at the height of my athletic strength, that Old Sylvia would often suggest: “Kalin meh bhoy, yuh lookin’ as thin as maggah. You need some ‘up wid some dumplin da’, and cow heel soup, some foo-foo and some fettagee; to thicken yuh up. Yuh too deny oy! ”What she didn’t include was that all our lovely foods were filled with extra salt!
Now, my only two ingredients, in my daily diet, are aspirin and a prescription cholesterol-related drug, for thinning blood. I eat anything green or yellow, roots, fruits, and, ironically, “good” spices like curries, cumin and turmeric, with lots of water and tea, for irrigation, cooling, and for flushing the toxins throughout life, with only poultry and marine species that provide protein. No alcohol needed, as I am already drunk in life!
For 2021, a Medical Travel Passport will return, but for us travelers over the age of 50, this is not a new concept. Some may remember the need for vaccines that I have already identified in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, if one was planning to travel internationally. I still have my bright yellow United Nations / World Health Organization Vaccine Book, but I wonder how many vaccinations I got. Wow!
By the end of 2021, most countries will require anyone entering their domain to need at least one of the authorized vaccines. I believe that one would need one full actives of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, then I would use one of the Johnson & Johnson vaccines (maybe) as an annual booster, as is done with the current flu vaccine. 2021 is a great year of hope. Get that vaccine. You Need Me Here!