Very far from the clear

The figures look encouraging, so some are asking whether the curve is dipping. But dipping or not, if there is one lesson to be learned from past pandemics, as well as the more recent experiences of other countries, it is that one hat does not fit all. Gains made can be easily erased, removing precautions prematurely can be a recipe for disaster. Therefore, before we turn our focus away from containment to recovery, we need to keep the need to control this situation at the forefront.

There’s perhaps no better illustration of why this should be the case than the baffling new infections recorded among 68 cruise ship passengers who were put into isolation at Balandra on March 18. Speaking at a media conference on Sunday, Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram described the infections as unusual since the coronavirus was originally thought to have an incubation period of only 14 days. In this case, the patients tested positive after being kept in isolation for 24 days.

A number of reasons could be advanced for this development, some relating to the tenuous nature of our understanding of covid19’s etiology, others having to do with management and the resources at our disposal – all demand caution, careful study and/or review and collaboration with international peers through vital bodies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and its regional arms.

In this context not only do we commend the tough action taken over the weekend by the police in breaking up covid19 parties, we encourage the authorities to take bold action when it comes to enforcing the law. All of the measures promulgated to this point have been done to save lives. If hard decisions are to be made going forward, authorities must not shirk from their responsibilities.

This includes the need for non-partisan consideration of any new measures required, itself a process which involves avoiding the politicisation of tangential matters. The worrying propensity of some to imbue a racial component to measures that have been enacted on the advice of career public servants working in public health is unfortunate, if not dangerous given the very real matters of life and death before us.

Internationally, some nations would like to relax. Yet the experiences of others make plain the threat is still upon the world. In the space of a few weeks, the epicentre of the pandemic moved from Asia to Europe. It is now North America, where the great city of New York has been brought to a standstill, with deaths surpassing 10,000 – even as the curve there has begun to plateau. There’s a large Caribbean population in New York and the situation therefore has direct repercussions for our society.

Hopeful figures beginning to present themselves notwithstanding, we are still very far away from being in the clear.