Jumbie Umbrella and Bush Tea
The Covid-19 pandemic is one of the most serious outbreaks of an infectious disease the world has ever seen. There have been 219 million cases and 4.55 million deaths worldwide. The infection is raging in most parts of the world. The headline is therefore not meant to be facetious. It is deadly serious because supposedly serious people are treating the pandemic as a joke. A member of one of the highest bodies in the land, the National Assembly, elected by the people of Guyana to make laws and otherwise look out for their interests, has pronounced that bush medicine cures Covid-19.
In this era of disease and death, and serious vaccine hesitancy in Region 10, Mr. Jermaine Figueira, Region 10 parliamentary representative for APNU+AFC, is reported to have told Linden residents as follows: “We have a number of Guyanese who would have contracted Covid; they used other forms of remedies – local, herbal remedies – and they recovered. Bona fide testimonies of persons who were infected and they recovered….What is (sic) in those remedies? We have scientists. Can those scientists take into consideration what these people would have used and probably have the population also consider that option to protect them from Covid?” (News Room 2012-09-08).