Tag Archives: Covid-19

Most politicians will only present information to the public in a form that is perceived to be politically advantageous. When confronted with the reality of adverse events, denials or attempts, the first reaction is to trivialise reality—and sometimes in an obnoxious manner. We have the added disadvantage of the poisonous …

The debate is over. In an official communiqué in mid-June, G7 leaders reiterated: ‘our support for the holding of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 in a safe and secure manner as a symbol of global unity in overcoming Covid-19’. Already, IOC vice-president John Coates, responding to a question …

In the post-vaccination world, borders will re-open to travellers from outside—with the exception of certain countries and subject to specific requirements. In this second summer under the pandemic, we will be restless and chafing against our current border closure regime as large numbers of Caribbean persons want to renew our …

As Trinidadians, we often want to ‘move on’ when difficult issues arise. We seldom wish to examine how public injustices happen. Instead, we accuse all who stop to explore the wreckage since we do not want ‘to play the blame game’.  This tendency is why our nation took 14 years …

“[…] Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s most recent attack on our senior public servants in the health care sector must be condemned in the strongest possible manner.  “[…] For the leader of the opposition to suggest that these medical professionals are in some form or fashion contributing to ‘premeditated, state-sanctioned murder’ is scurrilous and …

“[…] In a different state of public feeling, learned senior counsel’s words might be innocent and may not tend to disturb the peace and may be open to just censure. Not in the here and now. There are times when a spark will explode a powder magazine…” The following letter …

It comes as no surprise that our experts have provisionally concluded that the P1 (Brazilian) variant of the Covid-19 virus has expanded within our borders; and, according to Professor Christine Carrington, ‘is the dominant strain right now’.   In last Tuesday’s Trinidad Express, the professor reportedly stated that ‘testing since …

This week has been awfully long. How the worm has turned! On Thursday 3 June, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced that US vice-president Kamala Harris had promised a substantial vaccine donation.  On Saturday 5 June, he informed that the country had secured 800,000 Johnson & Johnson vaccines with an …

“[…] It should have been obvious to the minister of health that with all the deaths, the high number of cases and the reported dominance of the Brazilian variant, most people would want to be vaccinated. Get vaccinated has been the message for several weeks and citizens heeded the call.  …

It is clear now that the pandemic began to get the better of us in March and April and succeeded in surging to almost overwhelming proportions in the just concluded month of May. Although prematurely boastful, we appeared to have done well in restraining the advance of the pandemic for …

The efforts needed to coordinate the necessary actions to combat Covid-19 should induce wide-scale collaboration. A government cannot act on its own but must bring along the wider society. Polarised positions negatively impact the effective societal response.  When there are difficult new situations, and the media is the prominent news provider, …

The Ministry of Health confirmed another 16 Covid-19 related deaths today, which took the number of fatalities this month to a sobering 326. In the previous 14 months of the pandemic, Trinidad and Tobago had a total of 169 deaths. There were 271 new cases recorded, which were based on …