Covid19 and the need for speed

THE EDITOR: It’s all about speed. China’s responses to the chaotic situation in Wuhan where 89 per cent of the cases were concentrated were lockdowns and cordon sanitaire, a guarded line preventing anyone from leaving an area infected by a disease and thus spreading it.

While commending those in local authority for doing an excellent job thus far, I cannot stress on the need for the immediate restriction of the movement of people. We simply cannot be travelling en masse. We are putting everyone at risk and run the risk of sending TT into a state of emergency, which no one wants.

Please limit vehicle passengers to two – the driver and one passenger. This would lead to less congregating everywhere because less people would be on the streets. In the same manner that we are compensating those who have lost their jobs, I am confident the Finance Minister would find a method of compensating transport providers.

Let us behave like we used to many years ago when the person who owned a vehicle would assist those who do not. Assist your neighbour in getting groceries, market stuff, pharmaceuticals etc and reduce the amount of people moving around in public.

Epidemiologist Bruce Aylward, Assistant Director of the WH, while on a mission to China stated, “China’s bold approach to contain the rapid spread of this new respiratory pathogen has changed the course of a rapidly escalating and deadly epidemic.”

He said that the key learning from China is speed. Ssettle down and begin that systematic work of case finding and contact tracing and you definitely can change the shape of the outbreak, take the heat out of it and prevent a lot of people from getting sick and a lot of deaths.”

It is also important to know what the two most important symptoms are – fever and dry cough. Many think it’s a runny nose and the cold. So we must be aware of what the symptoms are and use our population as a surveillance system. Do not only depend on the health authorities. While it may or may not be true that “God is ah Trini,” on the issue of covid19 we have to help ourselves first.

TERRENCE KALLOO

Via e-mail

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"Covid19 and the need for speed"

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