Limited public awareness campaigns on COVID-19 have been done in Moraikobai, in Region Five since the start of the pandemic and the sudden increase of COVID-19 cases in the isolated community is a result of residents’ skepticism about the virus’s presence in the village as majority of them who tested positive are asymptomatic.
This was disclosed by Moraikobai Toshao Colin Adrian, who told Stabroek News in an interview that although residents are aware that COVID-19 exists, they do not believe that the virus has made its way to the community.
He said that he believes that many people are skeptical about the virus’ presence in the village because limited sensitisation about COVID-19 has been done in the community and the little that was done was an initiative by the Village Council of the community. He said that they embarked on a house-to-house COVID-19 awareness campaigns because no one was educating residents and noted that the Village Council was only disseminating its limited information about the virus.
Adrian said that so little information is available to residents that they believe that they are being duped by health authorities because they are not displaying any COVID-19 related symptoms when they are informed that they have tested positive for the virus.
Contributing to this, he said, is the lack of cellular signal in the community of 500 residents. He noted that although the village has a community Wi-Fi, it was not working for months and still isn’t.
He said that when the first few COVID-19 cases were detected, they had requested that the Wi-Fi be fixed because they felt that it would help residents to understand the details relating to virus. However, their request went unanswered so the village council again tried to educate residents but it seems that this has not worked since there is still a lot of disbelief in the community.
Adrian added that at the start of the pandemic they had limited the amount of persons travelling to the coastland because the village is cognizant of the fact that most persons in the community buy food supplies from Georgetown and other areas.
The Toshao revealed that he himself had contracted the virus late last month and although he experienced no symptoms he was made to isolate at a facility in Mahaicony. Noting that he is not disputing that fact, he said that he was not provided with any proof of his test results and this a concern to many of the Moraikobai residents who tested positive for the disease.
“One of their concerns is that they are not being provided with proof of their results and are only being told that they are positive via their phone calls and they are curious and want to know if they are being fooled. They are in doubt and that is one of the challenges that myself and the village council have been facing in the community. They (the residents) don’t believe that they have COVID because they are not having any symptoms and are just being told that they have it,” he said.
In addition, he explained that as a result of their skepticism many residents have not been adhering to isolation protocols and over the holidays they were gathered in large groups, especially on New Year’s Day.
Adrian said that he believes the sudden increase in cases is a result of those gatherings but there is not much that can be done because although they had multiple COVID-19 cases since November last, they have not been offered any assistance in terms of educating the residents and this has led to the continued ignorance of the people.
The Toshao said he is hopeful that this situation will change and people will begin to realize the severity of the pandemic
He said that first COVID-19 case was recorded in November 2020 and the virus has since claimed the lives of two elderly residents both of whom had underlying health conditions. According to Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony, 33 COVID-19 cases in the community were recorded over the weekend.
