Issues with covid19 policies

THE EDITOR: I am extremely disappointed at Government's continued ineffective response to the pandemic.

When one looks at who is most affected by the enforced border closure, it becomes obvious – everyone except the civil service and government ministries. The State continues to use tax dollars to pay its employees, while many private businesses cannot afford to do the same and must either lay off workers or shut down.

It is time Government do as it has recommended to everyone else – be innovative and think outside the box.

A cursory look at our covid19 figures suggest the likelihood of contracting the virus is now 1 in 500 and the likelihood of dying from it is 1 in 28,000. These numbers are simply taken from the number of reported cases, deaths and our total population.

If one looks further at the statistics, one will see that less than ten per cent of people above age 60, who contracted covid19, died from it and a more in-depth analysis reveals most who died had co-morbidities such as cancer, diabetes, hypertension or high blood pressure

The fact is that young, healthy citizens are more likely to die from choking on a chicken bone than from coronavirus.

Should we not therefore pay particular attention to our over-60 population and work to prevent them catching the virus, rather than simply pretending that keeping our borders closed and shutting down our economy and the entire country is the answer?

It's no secret that Venezuelans enter regularly via our beaches, unchecked and untested.

The majority of our 60-plus population is retired and so does not affect our economy in a meaningful manner any longer. Home isolation and other restrictions would not affect them to the same extent that existing government covid19 policies have affected the rest of the population.

We all expect that a vaccine will be available some time this year, but meanwhile, do we simply continue digging into the HSF, borrowing money which is unlikely to be repaid in our lifetime and destroying the very businesses that Government will depend on for future tax revenues? Does this make any sense?

If Government’s intent is to destroy private enterprise and control almost all commerce (a la Maduro) then it's doing this extremely well under its "covid19 strategy.”

Otherwise, is it asking too much to suggest that a commonsense, innovative approach be taken to reducing covid19 cases and deaths while at the same time reopening our economy and getting all able-bodied citizens under 60 working again for the good of the country?

NEIL BAXTER

Fort George

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"Issues with covid19 policies"

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