Emphasis should now be how to deal with covid19

THE EDITOR: The covid19 pandemic is taking its toll on the peoples of the world and TT is no exception. We have tied ourselves to the World Health Organization (WHO) and are therefore subjected to its guidelines. The words of advice from the WHO are “stay home and stay safe” and the three Ws – wash your hands, watch your distance and wear a masks.

This mantra of staying home and staying safe worked in the earlier days when most positive cases were in state quarantine and a small number was in self-isolation at home.

Now that there are over 7,000 people in self-isolation at home, staying home and staying safe is not bearing positive fruits. Doctors and nurses are advising separate toilets and baths, and to sanitise wherever and whatever the infected person has used.

Many homes in TT do not have the luxury of double toilets and baths and it is proving to be a difficult proposition for homes that have one infected person and several other occupants to keep the rest of the family safe and covid19-free with a single bathroom facility.

A worker can contract covid19 by simply having lunch in the lunchroom from an asymptomatic colleague, so it is time we refrain from labelling infected people as “careless” and “hardened” when there are many who can attest that they do not know where and when they got infected and that they were careful. So why this “careless” tag? After all, we have been dealt an invisible hand here and many are making a serious effort to stay safe.

Restrictive hours in a crowded home with one infected person is a recipe for disaster, so the number of deaths and infections goes up and the authorities increase restrictions on the populace – more deaths; more restrictions. And this is where our problem lies.

Our emphasis by now should have changed to how to deal with covid19 and not how to prevent infection. There are too many suspected infected people who have been tested and sitting at home waiting for results instead of acting on suspected early signs. Some asthmatic cases are misdiagnosing early signs as the usual asthma attack, with scarcely a word of advice from medical practitioners.

Our pharmacies are therefore now filled every day with people attempting to beat this virus by trying anything that a recovered person had advised since these directions would hardly come from the WHO under whose umbrella we operate.

Until then, we await vaccines in our crowded infected homes.

LARRY HAREWOOD

Couva