Dear Editor,
I have been bombarded with questions about the letter I wrote in the Stabroek News of 4th April 2019 headlined, ‘Ill persons from mine should have been quarantined in Region One, not brought to city’.
My intention was never to suggest that we abandon these people where they are, but we as a nation do not do what we are supposed to do. For example, on making enquiries yesterday, I was told that when the Civil Defence Commission was formed, this was one of their mandates i.e. to establish a functioning mobile quarantine unit well equipped to handle these situations effectively. As usual, we get the grant aid or the tax money from our citizens to establish these safeguards to the population, but we don’t.
My enquiries yesterday have disclosed to me facts which, at first impression, are that even though it is the mandate or even though it is supposed to be their mandate, they have never been given the money to set it up. It’s a national anthem not to do what we are supposed to do to protect the people who live here.
For example, the Asian men who came off the plane from Region One had on masks and other protective gear, and one friend I spoke to, tells me that he has pictures of the two pilots who transported them who had no protective gear whatsoever! These two pilots could have gone home and given the virus, if it was H1N1, to their children, who will go to school the next day etc, and spread it to the entire Georgetown!
We were lucky this time since it was not H1N1 but the full diagnosis is still not in. Leptospirosis is not communicated through the air but by coming into direct contact with the contaminated material. H1N1 however is.
Yours faithfully,
Tony Vieira
