“This makes no sense,” Dr Fuad Khan thunders at one point in his latest online sermon. “Whoever did this system is a dunce! Is time to get rid ah dese fools in the Ministry of Health.” It’s not easy to decide which set of fools is more wearisome, harder to …
Read More »Dear Editor: Months of missed opportunities: how Deyalsingh and his experts dropped the ball
“[…] Evidence suggests a very strong link between Covid-19 and obesity. In March 2021, the Independent, Sky News and Reuters published an article which highlighted that 90% of Covid-19 deaths were in countries with high obesity rates (in 2018, T&T was ranked 6th in childhood obesity in the Caribbean at …
Read More »Dear Editor: Charles is wrong, the health minister was obliged to defend T&T on Daily Show
“[…] The minister of health had an obligation to embrace the opportunity to appear on the show, as the matter raised by Ms Minaj had received widespread international coverage both on conventional and social media platforms. “[…] More particularly from a health perspective, T&T’s vaccination programme has been hampered by …
Read More »Noble: Hope is the oxygen of democracy; we cannot afford to let NGOs wither away
One of my saddest memories is of something that happened in 2015 at a village perched high overlooking Port-of-Spain. This village was once a place of joy, where citizens from all over the country flocked to watch the annual fireworks in the Queen’s Park Savannah. However, a nationally infamous gang …
Read More »PAHO: Children face significant Covid risk, but countries must do everything ‘to safely reopen schools’
“[…] With each day that children go without in-person schooling, the higher the likelihood that they drop out and never return to school. For some of the most vulnerable children—particularly for our girls—this can have lasting consequences. “Experts agree that the pandemic has triggered the worst educational crisis we have ever seen in the …
Read More »Dear Editor: It’s illegal, under OSHA, to force employees to pay for PCR tests
“Many employers are trying to force workers who have not been vaccinated to take a PCR test… Of course, the expectation is that workers will pay for this—and at anything up to $1,400 a test, it is hardly worth going to work. “You’re not going to work to pay the …
Read More »Tye: T&T’s governance model ‘breeds deep mistrust’—as such, ‘forced vaccinations’ would be a mistake
I certainly empathise with the government as they are navigating difficult decisions in the management of the economy and society during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, the issues facing the society are mostly not due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but deeper social issues that have never been properly addressed by …
Read More »Dear Editor: Open letter to T&T’s women—vaccinate your children and your households
“[…] Sisters, I urge you to make the right choice and ensure that all our eligible children are vaccinated, so that they can carry those school bags into their schools again. “Just as we carried them as babes in arms to get their first vaccinations, let us now ensure that …
Read More »Kangalee: Pandemic, yes, but is achieving herd immunity more than a pipe dream?
“[…] What bothers me, though, is how can we achieve herd immunity in the school system or in the country as a whole, when we are dealing with a pandemic which is a world-wide phenomenon? The vast majority of people on planet earth have so far had no access to …
Read More »From vaccine hesitancy to hierarchy: will any port do for Covid storm?
“[…] Pfizer is widely perceived to be at the top of the tree, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson just beneath that, followed by Oxford AstraZeneca, Sinopharm and Sputnik. I don’t know the extent to which this is driving decision-making, but I’ve heard several people say that they’re prepared to wait …
Read More »Demming: Dear Trinidad and Tobago, we must ‘become the leaders we wish to see’
Every time Honourable Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley opens her mouth my phone lights up with comments, video clips and messages of longing for a prime minister like her. Just stop it! We have whom we have; just deal with it—because in the natural flow of things, that will …
Read More »Two returning nationals test positive for Delta variant; unvaccinated travellers came from USA and Mexico
Trinidad and Tobago has its first two confirmed cases of the Covid-19 Delta variant. The Ministry of Health revealed that both patients are recently returned nationals, who entered the country on the back of negative PCR tests—before testing positive while in state-supervised quarantine. Both are unvaccinated. At present, both persons …
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