Courting misinformation

WITHOUT FACTS, there is no health care. Doctors need to examine patients. Samples need to be checked in laboratories. Studies must be conducted to test treatments. A doctor with no facts is not a doctor. He is a quack.

One of the ironic things about the way Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar unveiled her party’s 50-point plan “to revolutionise” the public health sector this week was the cavalier and reckless way she seemingly courted misinformation as she discussed the Government’s handling of covid19.

“Hundreds of thousands were given a fake vaccine and Roshan Parasram was shamelessly awarded the ORTT when, under his watch, over 5,000 of our citizens died,” she told a UNC meeting in Chaguanas on September 9. “He banned open-air cremations...unconstitutional.”

Dr Parasram, the Chief Medical Officer, is no sacred cow and Ms Persad-Bissessar is entitled to criticise him and the Government.

Indeed, there is legitimate reason to inquire into the State’s overall response to the pandemic, including its weak PR strategies, solely for the purpose of identifying systemic weaknesses and to prepare for future waves of disease.

However, the UNC leader’s comments were wildly irresponsible.

For a start, most deaths were those of unvaccinated individuals. Only a small proportion were vaccinated.

The contention that “hundreds of thousands” of people were administered “a fake vaccine” is without empirical grounding.

In fact, all the indicators suggest the Opposition – and Ms Persad-Bissessar in particular, who penned a letter to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pleading for more doses – once upon a time placed faith in the programme of inoculation.

“I respectfully appeal for your kind consideration to donate AstraZeneca covid19 vaccines to protect my fellow citizens,” she reportedly wrote in her letter to Mr Modi dated February 23, 2021.

Any statement, meanwhile, that Dr Parasram alone unlawfully barred cremations is unfair.

As the High Court has noted in one case on this issue, before August 2021 the restriction on pyre rituals was legitimate and balanced because of the paucity of information on covid19 at the time.

However, after that date it was no longer proportionate, and only then did it become unconstitutional, according to Justice Avason Quinlan-Williams in a ruling earlier this year.

Arguably, a big part of the issue was the Cabinet’s disappointing failure to amend its regulations appropriately in a timely way.

Still, the Privy Council has separately ruled other pandemic rules, challenged by religious bodies, were largely constitutional even as they harmed rights.

“People are now dead because of state-sanctioned murder,” Ms Persad-Bissessar claimed on September 9 in relation to covid19.

Not only has she exposed herself to the allegation that she has grossly spun facts to score political points, but she has misdiagnosed the requirements of leadership on this particular matter.