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COVID 19 Challenges for SIDs – A Lack of Discipline Exposed

  Last week Minister of Health Jeffery D. Bostic advised the nation that critical equipment needed by Barbados to fight COVID 19 was being blocked by the United States of America. In the case of Barbados it was 20 ventilators, Cayman 50, 000 masks, Bahamas a country with a close relationship with the USA has…

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Last week Minister of Health Jeffery D. Bostic advised the nation that critical equipment needed by Barbados to fight COVID 19 was being blocked by the United States of America. In the case of Barbados it was 20 ventilators, Cayman 50, 000 masks, Bahamas a country with a close relationship with the USA has also experienced issues clearing PPE originating in the USA.

The restriction on export of critical equipment can be traced to President Trump invoking powers under the Defense Production Act.

… the order gave the federal government more control over the procurement of coronavirus-related supplies, it also allowed the administration to ban certain exports. Trump invoked the act following a Twitter attack against U.S. manufacturer 3M over the export of its highly sought N95 respiratory face masks.

We can discussed the action by the USA from a few perspectives, one being the role of a developed country like the USA in the global humanitarian effort. What the action by the USA has exposed is that we live in a world where the sovereignty of nations will be tested. Governments of SIDs will have to find ingenious ways to implement frameworks for functional cooperation to optimally procure and deploy resources to ensure OUR citizens are protected. Since the launch of globalization, a wave of protectionist polices by developed countries makes the contrivance of the concept an opportunity for developing state to be perpetually trapped in a state of being poor.

One of the more instructive videos being shared in the social media space is one featuring Vivian Balakrishan, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Singapore, it is a must watch. One of the key takeaways for the blogmaster is the confidence with which he spoke about the committent of all citizens of Singapore to being disciplined at an individual level to ensure decisions taken by government are efficiently executed. One of several conclusions that can be made is that Barbados and many countries across the world have a long way to go if we are to wear the label a mature people, mature nations.

 

The blogmaster thanks Amit and the Anonymous member for sharing important links responsible for this blog – David, blogmaster

175 responses to “COVID 19 Challenges for SIDs – A Lack of Discipline Exposed”

  1. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    no new cases for 2 days

    https://gisbarbados.gov.bb/blog/zero-cases-of-covid-19-for-two-days/

  2. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    @lyallsmall April 17, 2020 3:46 PM

    Wait and see.

  3. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    fortyaceesandamuleApril 16, 2020 11:24 PM

    @Miller. Right on my brother. Most of our people are in a deep slumber. Alive, but dead. At my age, I have given up all hope of ever seeing a true model of black economic prosperity and success.

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    I would call it a drunken stupor.

  4. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    Bob;

    Yes! Early days yet

  5. David Avatar
    David

    @lyallsmall

    At what point on the curve are we?

  6. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    Ok science dude @Lyall, no new tests in 2 days and my first question was …how many tests were done… 65, I discovered. That’s encouragingly impressive…. for a nation that was trending at around 10% of positives to test subjects that’s actually quite outstanding…

    So my next question, was that sample population selected as those tested before were? Somewhat rhetorical as I have to presume they followed good sample/science protocols and they were.

    And then we move on to, so is this indicative that we really had limited or no ‘community spread’… and to reinforce that have we done all geo tracing for those missing folks who came into the island recently?

    And then finally so if this is validated by no new or very few positives over coming days does that mean we will be TESTNG every visitor to island when things open up…assuming no new anti-viral/vaccine!

  7. David Avatar
    David

    We need community spread if a vaccine is long in coming anyway, it has to be controlled?

  8. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    David;

    Re. your 5:04 pm query

    The epidemic was trending downwards since 31st march. The “solutions” graph doesn’t show this clearly as they are graphing the cumulative increases with time. If one looks instead at the changes in the daily total cases it is clear that there are 3 distinct peaks on 20th march, 28th march and then 31st march, which was coincidentally the start of the mandatory quarantine for arrivals. Thereafter, the daily cases consistently trend downwards until the present day. The 3 peaks may well be reflective of the imported cases and early contacts with them. In any case, log transformations of the daily data better visualizes that there is no significant logarithmic changes from 31st march and no exponential increases in the daily incidence and hence no community spread. The two days of no cases may be the visualization of the beginning of the control of the disease. I have graphs in jpg format that I could send you to add to this post. Please let me know the address to send them to.

    dpD
    It would appear that the sample population was essentially contacts only, which introduces other problems. But the Czar might have included other hosts. I dunno, but you should ask the Czar along with your other questions that follow above.

    The parameters of the GIS/Czar data needs to be fully explained.

  9. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    David;

    Re. your 6:16 pm post. Trust me, we don’t need community spread. If we are so lucky as to have captured all the instances of possible community spread from the 3 early peaks seen in the data we should get the Vaccines / Medicines from the US or Cuba or Jamaica. In any case the virus would have disappeared and we should maintain the quarantines at the ports as long as necessary.

  10. David Avatar
    David

    @llyalsmall

    Click on top of page under Confidential Message and you will find BU email address.

  11. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    David;

    I sent the graphs to you last night by email just after midnight. Grateful if you would incorporate them into my 11:57 pm post last night at your earliest convenience.

    Tron;

    I was looking through some of the other BU blogs around midnight and saw that you have been consistently suggesting that the measures instituted by Government is bearing fruit and that control of Covid-19 is possibly near at hand. I too think that the graphs show that control might be imminent. If it is so Government must continue the measures already taken with a view to easing up a bit at the end of May while developing strategies and obtaining materials for; random testing of the population; strategic surveillance around the Island of populations that have been shown in the US etc. as being very susceptible to rapid spread of the virus; reopening the schools as soon as feasible; getting the tourism engine back on track using, inter-alia, messaging on our demonstrable covid-19 status as compared with other global destinations..

    I think that it is possible, perhaps even likely, that our covid-19 deaths might eventually turn out to be very much lower than the 100 minimum cases suggested by the Czar but i’m not betting on it yet.

  12. David Avatar
    David

    @Lyall

    Posted on the 6’ blog.

  13. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    dpD you said

    “…. And then finally so if this is validated by no new or very few positives over coming days does that mean we will be TESTNG every visitor to island when things open up…assuming no new anti-viral/vaccine! ….”

    No! use random surveillance and testing of the local population allied with similar, but targeted, testing of all visitors showing Covid-19 symptoms; mandatory 14 day official quarantines of any positive testing visitors. Use a slogan like (if scientifically verified) “Barbados has been verified free of Covid-19. help us keep it so”… If we can show that we’ve actually and demonstrably controlled Covid-19, that fact could be used to assure potential visitors that they need not fear coming here.

  14. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    @lyall
    Your graph looks good and demonstrates the leveling-off (effectiveness of government effort). I believe there are some minor edits that can be made to make your message stronger

  15. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    TheOGazerts

    Sorry about the tone of my response to you on the other blog. I had intended to send 2 different graphs for david to post but instead sent 2 of the same graphs. I just sent David a copy of the graph which I inadvertently and mistakenly sent last night.

    Yes, there are many changes I could make to make the message stronger. When I get the time I will modify the Graphs to make them clearer.

    Sorry again

  16. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    @lyallsmall April 18, 2020 8:30 AM

    “getting the tourism engine back on track using, inter-alia, messaging on our demonstrable covid-19 status as compared with other global destinations.”

    Wishful thinking. Even if Barbados gets its tourism back on track locally, do you really expect people to travel, bearing in mind that millions of persons would have out of work and would have used up what little savings their had to tide them over the rough months? The below extract should disabuse you of hopeful views. Remember, most of the tourists are from the UK.

    Peter Walker Political correspondent . The Guardian, UK.
    @peterwalker99
    Fri 17 Apr 2020 16.53 BST Last modified on Fri 17 Apr 2020 23.10 BST

    Travel firms angry over Grant Shapps’ ‘no summer holiday’ comment

    UK transport minister casts doubt on rapid lifting of Covid-19 travel restrictions

    The government has in effect warned Britons against planning a summer holiday this year, whether in the UK or abroad, prompting an angry reaction from the travel industry, which is warning that many firms in the sector could collapse.

    The response from Abta, the UK’s trade association for holiday operators and travel agents, came after Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, cast doubt on a sufficiently rapid lifting of social distancing or travel restrictions imposed due to Covid-19.

    “I won’t be booking a summer holiday at this point. Let’s put it that way,” Shapps told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme when asked if people should think about booking a break in the coming months.

    “Clearly people will want to see what the trajectory of this disease is in the next few weeks,” he said. “We’ve just started to see a flattening of that tragic curve which shows the deaths each day, where they’re bubbling around at the same level, and the number of people going into intensive care, and the rest of it. But we’re not seeing the declines yet.”

    Abta, which has warned of a mass collapse of travel companies due to the coronavirus pandemic, condemned Shapps’ advice.

    “It was a thoughtless comment and not based on any facts about what we know today about the future of the pandemic, but it shows complete disregard for the UK travel industry, the hundreds of thousands of people it employs and the struggle it is facing in this current crisis,” it said in a statement.

    “It would be better if the government focused on taking the necessary steps to support the sector rather than undermining confidence in it.”

    However, Shapps received apparent support from Downing Street, with Boris Johnson’s spokesman noting that travel within the UK for holidays was still not allowed, while the Foreign Office had warned against all but essential overseas trips.

    “While we are making progress in the fight against coronavirus, we are not able to say with certainty the point at which the social distancing measures can be relaxed,” he said. “As of today it is a fact that both the guidelines and the official Foreign Office advice do not allow for people going on holidays.”
    Asked about the threat to the sector, Shapps told the BBC he could not offer travel firms further guidance as to when restrictions could change, as that was a matter for scientific advice. The impact of the pandemic would reshape many industries, including travel and tourism, he predicted.

    “I can’t sugarcoat this for you,” Shapps said. “The government has gone to extraordinary lengths to come up with all manner of schemes to do what is, in terms of global responses, one of the most comprehensive [business support] packages.

    “But we know that we won’t be able to save every single business in every single circumstance. It would be wrong for me to sit here and tell you that there will be no changes as a result of this.”

  17. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    We can all agree that tourist industry will be hard hit.

    Tourism also carries the danger that when we think the danger is past then one new infected tourist takes us back to square one.

    I would like to be a fly on the wall in the war-rooms of this administration. I suspect that tourism, right now is playing a distant second fiddle to this coronavirus problem.

    When this thing is firmly under control then they have to revise the tourism plan…

  18. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    @ TheOGazerts April 18, 2020 11:10 AM

    These pandemics come in waves of infection. This is the first wave. There will be a second wave and even a third wave. Else where on the Blog, I referred to the Asian and Hong Kong pandemics of 1957-8 and 1967-8. Both had two -three waves of infections. Similarly the 1918-1919 pandemic had a least two waves :one in 1918 and the other in 1919. It is therefore premature to talk about getting the tourism industry back up. People just aren’t going to travel by air or ship any time soon. Aircraft and ships are ideal for the spread of the disease. As a matter of fact, one of the big cruise lines is being sued for not being able to adequately prevent passengers from being infected. Without government aid, the air lines and cruise line businesses most likely will fail. I personally think that they should be allowed to fail. Tax payers’ money should not be used to bail out them.

  19. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ Robert

    A book I have not read is Deadliest Enemy by Michael T. Osterholm, a history of pandemics. The reviews are very good. What is of interest is that he suggests that the H1 N1 flue also came out of a laboratory, this time a Soviet laboratory..

  20. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    From all accounts it appears that the lab in Wuhan wasn’t the only facility having problems handling sensitive material, the CDC was also plagued with the same issue causing a delay in the production of test kits.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/contamination-at-cdc-lab-delayed-rollout-of-coronavirus-tests/2020/04/18/fd7d3824-7139-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html

  21. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    @ Hal April 18, 2020 11:59 AM

    I haven’t read the book. I was about to discount the Russian angle because of the civil war( there were two uprisings, the second of which( the October revolution) was fomented by Russian Jews which resulted in the genocide of non-Jewish Russians, a fact that a lot of people do not want to remember and subsequent disorder that prevailed at that time. I was forced to reconsider since the Germans invented the process of nitrogen fixation by Fritz Haber who also came up with the idea of using phosgene gas in chemical warfare. I would still discount it because at that time very little was known about viruses. As a matter of fact, attributing diseases to viruses had only been demonstrated after the turn of the century. Nothing was known about the molecular biology(MB) of viruses and a knowledge of MB would have to have been known to tweak the genomic structure of viruses, DNA/RNA was not even known. The electron microscope had not yet been invented which would have led to the study of the structure of viruses. The H1 Ni was the the virus which caused the pandemic of 1918-1919. Michael T. Osterholm is trained in infective diseases and should know better than to spin the suggestion. I know it is popular these days to blame the Russians for everything. Maybe it is a ploy to sell more copies of the book. The reviewer should have mentioned the flaw: that is if the reviewer is trained in the sciences.

  22. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    @ Sargeant April 18, 2020 12:23 PM

    Cutting corners trying to get the kit out as fast as possible. This isn’t the first time CDC has blundered. Did it with MRSA infections in health facilities. Some heads will roll. Trump was actually blamed for the mess up.

  23. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    GREAT NEWS

    “Barbados’ youngest COVID-19 patient and her father were released from isolation today after receiving two consecutive negative test results for the viral illness.

    The seven-year-old girl and her parent were among 35 people who tested negative yesterday as the number of tests done since February 11 reached the 1000 mark.

    For the third consecutive day, no-one tested positive for COVID-19.

    Since March 16 when the first two cases were identified, 75 people have tested positive for COVID-19, and 17 have recovered. Five Barbadians have died and 53 remain in isolation”

  24. Tron Avatar
    Tron

    If we still have no new infections for the next 14 days, the traitorous opposition must apologize for the serious false accusations against our government.

    The DPP must now finally give up her partisanship and crack down hard on the opposition. Those who unjustifiably stir up panic in this serious situation must be punished, even if they have the same party membership. If there is no investigation, the Attorney General should examine the offence of obstruction of justice.

    Dale Marshall to work!

  25. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    @Tron

    Dale Marshall to work!
    +++
    Good luck!

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