Political analyst: People must get serious about covid19

POLITICAL analyst Dr Shane Mohammed on Friday urged the population to understand the seriousness of the Prime Minister's message to them about covid19 in Trinidad and Tobago. He said citizens must now act with greater discipline and responsibility, politicisation of the virus must stop, and Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar must cooperate with Government in the fight.

Referring to Dr Rowley's address to the nation on Thursday last week, Mohammed said: "He took a very diplomatic approach in his address, which I thought was very strategic politically."

He said anyone who came away thinking that Rowley's speech was a waste of time or saw it through political lenses, missed the deep significance of his words.

"There were a lot of subliminal messages when he used various examples of what is taking place across the world."

Rowley referred to a series of strict measures taken in countries such as the United States, New Zealand, Singapore, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Guadeloupe, France and Latvia, to fight covid19

These included mandatory vaccinations for federal workers; fines and no-pay suspensions for unvaccinated people and allowing businesses to suspend/fire workers who refuse to be vaccinated.

Mohammed said, "It is an indication to us that if we don't get our house in order, if we don't cut our cards straight and people don't get serious, then it's going to come down to him having to act similarly to other world leaders."

He said all citizens are smart enough to understand what Rowley said and know what they have to do to fight covid19.

"I don't think there is anything else that the Prime Minister needed to say for any English Literature student and anybody who is pursuing a degree in English Language or linguistics, sociology or psychology and political science (to understand)."

Mohammed also said it was not necessary for Rowley to repeat all what Government did to acquire covid19 vaccines, how many people are either fully or partially vaccinated, or repeatedly appeal to people to get vaccinated. He indicated that former health minister Dr Fuad Khan has been telling people on social media, who choose to remain unvaccinated, to accept the consequences of their actions.

From a personal perspective, Mohammed knows the grim reality of covid19 having recently lost a relative to the virus. He reiterated that the strong subliminal message from Rowley is that if people continue along the trajectory they are going, and the numbers of covid19 cases continue, "then we are going to end up having a lot more dead bodies and we are going to become overhwhelmed."

Mohammed suggested Government consider measures such as mandatory covid19 vaccination and keeping unvaccinated people at home under strict quarantine arrangements. He acknowledged this may cause some people to claim TT is being turned into a police or military state.

But Mohammed said given the current situation with respect to covid19, where the number of covid19 cases and deaths continue to rise, it may become necessary "to go draconian on those who are unvaccinated."

He called on Persad-Bissessar to be the bigger person, put politics aside and genuinely offer to form a bi-partisan arrangement between Government and Opposition to combat covid19. Simply having taken two doses of a covid19 vaccine should not be Persad-Bissessar's sole contribution as a national leader to helping protect citizens from the virus, he said.

Mohammed also suggested that Rowley consider taking over as health minister from Terrence Deyalsingh in order to better coordinate the strategies being used to deal with covid19 in TT.