… On Vendors and COVID-19
Yesterday, your Eyewitness noted – en passant – that the established businesses in Georgetown are being monitored, and even fined, for not observing COVID-19 protocols, the vendors, who continue to occupy The pavements in front of those businesses are joking, left to “do their thing”. That “thing” is an absolute guarantee that anyone forced to flank them cannot maintain the social distance of a foot, much less the required 3 to 6 feet. Not to mention pushing their wares in your face to get your attention (and the money). Who checks to make sure they don’t carry the virus? Does anyone check the temperatures or cleanliness of their hands?
At last, the authorities START to appreciate the enormity of this COVID-19 threat – probably only because the infections are now increasing both quantitatively and qualitatively.
From 218 deaths in the first year – from ground zero, March 25 with our first (imported) death, to March 25 2021, we had 218 deaths. Which works out to .6 / daily deaths. But from then to April 8 – just 14 days – our deaths increased by 34. Giving us a death rate of 2.4 / daily: an increase of nearly FOUR TIMES in just two weeks !! Unsurprisingly, the rate of infection has also increased proportionally!
Qualitatively, young people are now dying … we had one 26 year old death, if your Eyewitness memory serves it properly. This is the most worrying development. Not that we shouldn’t worry about older people passing on, but they have at least lived long enough to fulfill their potential (of whatever quantum!)! But what about these young? The ones we hope to develop our nation? Can we afford to cull them?
Well, we know that there are no silver bullets against COVID-19, not even the vaccines and the “herd immunity” we hear about, because of the mutations that the virus gets through ‘ the time! So, it means we have to cast our net of weapons as far and wide as possible. And this is where we call on the authorities to include the vendors in their list of possible viruses of the virus.
Now, your Eyewitness is very sympathetic to the needs of the vendors and the services they provide to a poverty-stricken population. But this COVID-19 nose is getting tighter and tighter every day. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and these are certainly the most desperate times.
Isn’t this the time to relocate our vendors? How about a $ 1.6 billion Jubilee Park? There, the sale can be health-wisely regulated and vice versa. And they will be large enough to attract their own customers looking for bargains.
Meaning most Guyana!
… On public servants’ funds
The PNC has been protesting in good faith that some of its appointees should not be dismissed to various public bodies, which have subsequently been charged by the Government for various allegedly illegal acts. Not guilty until proven guilty and all that! But Patrick Yard, President of the GPSU – one of the founding pillars of the PNC because of its 14,000 members in the 22,000 strong Public Services – seems not to have conveyed the message.
Yarde requires Trevor Benn (of GL&SC fame) to step aside as Chair of the GPSU Credit Union Interim Management Committee, ahead of its AGM on April 11.
Why? Well, he was charged for some alleged hanky-panky at the GL&SC !! So, is Yarde confronting the PNC, which has backed Benn to the hilt on his accusations? Well, it was the PNC that had placed Benn in the IMC over the GPSUCU – because Yarde and his minions suspect hanky-panky there!
Oh, what a tangled web …
… On ‘it takes a village’
Remember when he “took a village to raise a child”? Well, maybe he is returning. Villagers in Kaneville EBD appear to have abducted a teenage girl from the village who robbed another youth. He had to receive medical attention.
