The blogmaster changed the title submitted – David, blogmaster
If your house was flooded with water, and the water level was rising, what would you do? The obvious solution would be to close the water faucet, and then start cleaning up.
With our COVID-19 cases rising, we recommended closing our borders to visitors and shutting down the economy for 2 weeks, starting Wednesday 25 March 2020 (Point 1 on the graph). We stated that that date was critical to reducing internal transmission rates to zero, with minimal disruption.
That advice was not accepted, and we waited until the horse was out of the stable to do a half-hearted shut down on Sunday night (Point 2 on the graph). However, for some mysterious reason, we kept the faucet running.
All of our cases can be traced to someone who was allowed to enter through our open ports. If we wanted to keep them open, then the obvious solution would be to test everyone for the virus before letting them into our general population.
That advice was not accepted either. So to the present day, we continue to allow persons to enter Barbados without being tested. We again plead with the Government to close the faucet, so that we can start to get this under control. This now has fatal consequences.
On Wednesday 1 April 2020, the Government instituted a mandatory 14-day quarantine for everyone who arrived in Barbados. It would be a far more efficient use of our resources to test each traveller, and only quarantine the infected persons. But that advice was not accepted either.
As can be seen from the graph, the number of cases is not declining. How can it unless we close the faucet, or at the very least, test everyone who enters? Why is this so difficult to understand?
RECOMMENDATIONS
A 14-day shut-down could have been effective, but we are not taking advantage of this opportunity. If the number of cases on Sunday 12 April 2020 is about 75, then we would have unnecessarily squandered this opportunity.
If the shut-down is extended, because there is no improvement, then you need to survive. If you are receiving welfare grants, or have been selected to share in the Government’s $10M needy families program, or similar programs, then you should be looked after.
Due exclusively to Government’s procurement policies, many Barbadian are either working-poor, or house-poor, or both. If their job or house excludes them from receiving assistance, then they still need to look after their families.
Banks have provided a useful mortgage deferred payment initiative. Banks will allow persons to not make any mortgage payments for the next three months. After that time, you may have three options.
You may: pay the accumulated mortgage after the 3 months; extend your mortgage for three months; or treat the unpaid mortgage as a short-term loan, and pay it back over an agreed time.
The main benefit is that if you are not earning for a prolonged period, then you have the option of spending your remaining money on food, without putting your mortgage at risk.
We recommend that you communicate with your bank on what you want to do, before making another mortgage payment.
The blogmaster invites you to join the discussion.