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Covid 19 Pandemic Stress Test

Submitted by Steven Kaszab When logic, emotions and reality checks hit the mark. IS YOUR MIND LIKE A TORTURE CHAMBER DURING THIS PANDEMIC, ZAPPING YOUR CREATIVITY AND TAKING YOU DOWN? I have been a manufacturer for 30 +years. And in that time have been in many stressful situations.We all have. But since the pandemic hit,…

Submitted by Steven Kaszab

When logic, emotions and reality checks hit the mark.

IS YOUR MIND LIKE A TORTURE CHAMBER DURING THIS PANDEMIC, ZAPPING YOUR CREATIVITY AND TAKING YOU DOWN?

I have been a manufacturer for 30 +years. And in that time have been in many stressful situations.
We all have.

But since the pandemic hit, I have experienced a whole new level of stress, anxiety and emotions. And I know I am not alone. This pandemic has robbed both life and quality of life.
I can tell you personally that my emotional state has been like a roller coaster. One day I am hopeful, then the next could be gloom and doom…although really nothing has specifically changed to sway me either way!
Then I had an epiphany about something… I asked myself:
What scene was my own mind playing out?
What was my internal dialogue?
When was I most prone to going down that dark path?
What triggered the dark thoughts?
I was, at times, turning my mind into a torture chamber…ALLOWING MY THOUGHTS TO OVER TAKE MY EMOTIONS…not realizing that I alone had the power to escape.
I remembered something I read years ago by a prominent author,

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as WE are.” -Anaïs Nin

So we see things through our own filter, be it negative or positive. (hence, the half full or half empty glass)
SO I AM NOW FOCUSING ON MY MIND, what it sees, what it thinks, what it eats…as a means of emotional survival.

“I have known a great many troubles, most of which never happened.” – Mark Twain

Ugh…the places we allow our thinking to go, worrying about things that mostly won’t ever happen.

88 responses to “Covid 19 Pandemic Stress Test”

  1. Critical Analyzer Avatar
    Critical Analyzer

    @Cuhdear Bajan November 14, 2020 5:36 PM

    Covid19 has already killed 1,315,429, if we do nothing and it lasts as long as the 1918 flu and if it continues for as long and the kill rate remains the same as it is now 160 million people will die. This worries the epidemiologists. It should worry all of us.

    You were wrong about a few things.
    1) Epidemiologists models were all dead wrong. The Sweden no lockdown strategy proved that, their two biggest mistakes were not adequately protecting nursing homes and not putting more emphasis on therapeutic research.
    2) Most people that died from the 1918 Flu died from secondary bacterial infections and antibiotics had not yet been developed. If the 1918 flu was to happen now, the death rate would be much lower.
    3) Vaccine or new wonder drug are not the only two options like the drug companies would have us believe.

    There is a third much safer way, using known existing drugs and vitamin combinations to treat symptomatic people in the early before they progress to the pneumonia stage.

    The vaccine they rushed through in six months is a completely new vaccine technology that is unproven and the long term side effects are unknown but we are still going to risk giving it to our people. The vaccine developers have said take it at your own risk because they are no long term impact studies and they are not going to go bankrupt from the lawsuits if it goes wrong.

  2. Cuhdear Bajan Avatar
    Cuhdear Bajan

    Critical Analyzer November 14, 2020 7:08 PM “If somebody has the flu or bronchitis, we don’t tell them do nothing and go to A&E when they get worse.”

    I don’t know where you are writing from, but certainly in Barbados we have NOT been doing as you suggest above. In Barbados ALL positive people have been taken into treatment. In Barbados nobody has been told to wiat until they are very sick than go to A & E, so I don’t know where you are getting your mis-information about the Barbados situation. One of the treating physicians is my neighbor. An excellent physician, honest, hard working, trustworthy.

  3. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    My financial adviser was spot on the money three years
    I took his advice

  4. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    One can bet that BEST was the worst of advice given to the novist investor
    Govt would find a way out and not the best way to fulfill promises it made to the small.investor
    Covid calls the shot

  5. Critical Analyzer Avatar
    Critical Analyzer

    @Cuhdear Bajan November 14, 2020 7:55 PM
    What I am saying is our focus needs to be on achieving outpatient treatment as the standard, not putting everyone that tests positive in an isolation facility that is not free to operate and further reduces our already limited health resources.

    The only people in our isolation facility should be serious cases needing more invasive medical intervention.

  6. Critical Analyzer Avatar
    Critical Analyzer

    The 8 persons that tested positive from the cruise ship.
    Who is footing the bill for their care?
    What would have happened if the positive numbers had been 40 out of the 83?

    As I keep saying, we depending too much on luck.

  7. TheOgazerts Avatar
    TheOgazerts

    Our definition of luck is different. I think allowing new cases to enter has to be a deviation from the protocols and introduces an element of luck.

    However, if they were 40 out of 83, they would have treated the same way (quarantined) and we would have the same outcome as we have right now. Only if the system gets overwhelmed or if we have free movement of covid-19 case does the protocols fail.

    These guys in Barbados are way ahead of their critics.

  8. Sargeant Avatar
    Sargeant

    @Tony

    Applaud you for bringing up to date info on the status of vaccines in the pipeline

  9. TheOgazerts Avatar
    TheOgazerts

    I find that you are mixing apples and oranges and coming up with lemonade.

  10. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    But the hard question must be asked
    Why is govt still letting people from hot spots enter barbados shores
    Who are paying these medical bills
    Is this not a policy of a penny wise and pound foolish after months of govt spending millions of medical expense on COVID patients and the economy receiving nothing beneficial in return
    Most of the time i stuspee when people cheer about no community spread when the purpose of opening borders was for the tourist industry and govt to benefit from the tourist spend
    Presently what is happening is govt rolling out millions to stop community spread when COVID tourist reaches our shores
    However nothing being asked of govt about what the medical cost is
    No community spread seems to be the mantra govt has decided to use to take the peoples attention away from the real problem of cost attached to these patients

  11. David Avatar
    David

    Browne upset with Barbados classification
    A row appears to be brewing between Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda over a COVID-19 risk classification.
    Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne has written Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley about Barbados’ placing of his country in the “mediumrisk category”.
    Browne told Mottley in the letter: “Our two countries have suffered when other countries and regions have unilaterally applied classifications to them. Most recently, the arbitrary classification of Barbados by the European Union as a “high-risk” country regarding anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing, was rightly protested by you and your government. My government and I, personally raised our voices in support of Barbados to decry the arbitrary action.
    ‘Deep concern’ “You will understand therefore, my government’s deep concern about Barbados’ classification of Antigua and Barbuda as highrisk or medium-risk when the facts tell a quite different story. You will further appreciate our disquiet when Barbados departs from the position taken by the CARICOM Heads of Government to apply the CARPHA standard of 20 active cases for a population of 100 000. In Antigua and Barbuda’s case, we have only four infected persons, well below the threshold set by CARPHA.”
    Earlier this month, Antigua and Barbuda was listed by Barbados among several countries in the high-risk category and this was rejected by the Antigua
    and Barbuda government.
    The high-risk categorisation was lowered to mediumrisk in the most recent Barbados travel protocols on November 10, but Gaston-Browne is still not satisfied with this. Browne said he was “confident” that based on Mottley’s commitment to “fairness and rightness and to the facts” the Barbados Prime Minister would “intervene personally to ensure that the regional stand established by CARPHA and agreed by Heads of Government is applied by the Barbados authorities.”
    (GC)

  12. lawson Avatar
    lawson

    Why doesnt the king of barbuda when he is not wanting to fight trump ask mia.

  13. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ Mariposa

    Plse make it clear I was not your financial adviser. Some cyber bullies will claim I gave you financial and legal advice. The peeping tom is always on the lookout.

  14. David Avatar
    David

    Steuspe

  15. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    In the pharmaceutical industry, being the first to market often gives the company a significant advantage and allows it to dominate the market.

    However, this pfizer vaccine appears to be too complicated to maintain this advantage or domination.

    ——-XXX—–
    Financial advice
    Boys and girls, I have been buying $x.00 shares of pfizer, every month for the past 10 years. I also reinvest the dividends. Look up DRIP

  16. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    Hal that happen about three years ago
    Medical marijuana and other stock options some of which were in Pharmaceutical
    These past months were not easy
    However i took his advice with a view of change coming from USA election which would accelerate the stock market
    Patience seems has its benefits

  17. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    It is times like these where BU can be of better service educating readers on things financial and benefits
    Instead of using political rabbit holes to cover govt failures
    Govt spent millions importing COVID
    Presently spending millions to stop community spread which govt imported
    Then we have a bunch of dunderheads clapping about no community spread when had not for govt importing COVID barbados would have zero cases and zero deaths
    So far what are the financial benefits from this great govt policy
    Zero as in Nada
    God bless us and protected barbados from the virus setting us apart in safety from the international countries who have suffered economically along with huge death rate
    But what does govt do defy the goodness of God open up its borders let the virus in then spends millions to control the virus
    Meanwhile back to a reality that is attacking our social environment is our health system in need of help
    QEH is on life support
    Crime and violence at runaway speed and the people suffering in hushed silence
    Just imagine what those millions spent on COVId could have done with an interest to be of benefit to barbados
    Here i am eyeballing bridgetown suffering from a dreaded disease of economic and social neglect
    So sad.

  18. TLSN Avatar
    TLSN

    I hear you Mariposa. This government was the last in the Caribbean to refuse egress to cruise ships. The Barbados government was determined to retain this trade; that it gave permission to the cruise industry to use its waters as a holding port.

    It is a pity that our government invested so much time and energy in this risky adventure. One of the large UK corporate accountancy firms stated, yesterday, that the tourist industry would take four years to restore itself; if they reinvented themselves.

    It is a crying shame that this Mia has clung to a declining industry since March, instead of looking at a host of other areas of our economy which may have had an immediate and positive impact on our economy.

    The elephant in the room is Covid-19. Should we remain loyal to the industry and accept that it will bring certain death to the masses.

  19. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    TlSN
    I can bet that the millions behind COVID to save the tourist industry could have spent rebuilding baxter Rd and Nelson St and surrounding environs of bridgetown from downtown and along baystreet
    Investing money which would have put locals back to work with a vision in mind that when Covid is under control world wide the finishing projects would incorporate to be a mixture of tourism and local business helping to rebuild the economy as well as socially along with generating more jobs on sustainable level long term
    But No. Where there is no vision the people fail.

  20. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ Mariposa

    Your infrastructural plan is better economics than anything proposed by Persaud and his gang or the overpaid ones at Cave Hill. This is the reason why you are constantly attacked.
    Tell your opponents to discuss the economic proposals instead of waffle; you are on a winner. Great stuff.

  21. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    Hal can u imagine how many unemployed would be working presently
    Not to mention the end result of a beautiful welcoming bridgetown having a healthy economical theme which saves local business and place barbados. social enviroment amongst one of the worlds best

    A picture to die for

  22. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ Mariposa

    I am afraid I can. It is macroeconomics 101. What is more, government would not have to borrow to carry out that work. They can print the money; the only risk will be asset price inflation. That can be avoided by removing that liquidity from the system.
    Even Persaud should know that. What about the post office/credit union bank we were told about in the 52-page, near-three hour Queen’s Speech On September 15? Bds$100m of the $300m given to bail out the badly managed, family-owned hotels would have been better spent funding the balance sheet bank. But, black Bajans may benefit from any such development. That cannot work in Mottley’s narrow world.
    Where is the White Paper? When are they going to start public discussions? Or are they, as usual, just going to publish a Bill?

  23. TLSN Avatar
    TLSN

    @ Hal,
    I see that St Lucia received 3 flights today from North America.

    By the way did you see Steve McQueen’s small axe production on the BBC: The Mangrove Nine. It was explosive. The acting was superb. Let’s hope that we will finally see more of these productions that concentrates on the Caribbean presence in the UK from the fifthties to the eighties. There are so many stories to tell.

    https://www.nationnews.com/2020/11/10/air-canada-returns-st-lucia/

  24. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    These Cartibbean govts are now being exposed as useless tin horn dictators
    Not one of them have an alternative to Tourism during this time if COVID
    Not one
    Reason why i laugh out loud when i hear them patting self on the back about numbers and comparing their countries low numbers to USA big numbers
    Now pray in countries the size of shoe boxes where is the numerical comparison to a country like the USA whose population is over 337 million
    Furthermore had not for international countries giving COVID assistance these small island would be caught like a deer staring into headlights
    Not one can even produce a button fartherless paper to help themselves in a medical crisis
    Yet gloat and pat self on the back about smallCOVID numbers
    Wuhloss imagine a mouse sitting on a lions tail and thinking he can eat the lion
    That is the way these small island leaders think

  25. Walter Blackman Avatar
    Walter Blackman

    TheOGazerts
    November 15, 2020 12:54 PM

    “Financial advice
    Boys and girls, I have been buying $x.00 shares of pfizer, every month for the past 10 years. I also reinvest the dividends. Look up DRIP”

    TheOGazerts,
    The highest point reached by Pfizer stock was $48.00 about 20 years ago.

    It is currently trading at $38.62
    When the latest news of the vaccine came out, I said to myself that the Pfizer stock is sure to rise. Indeed, the stock price did soar.
    However Pfizer’s CEO, Albert Bourla, sold $5.6 million worth of his stock on Monday and this has caused a lot of eyebrows to be raised.

  26. Cuhdear Bajan Avatar
    Cuhdear Bajan

    @Mariposa November 15, 2020 1:28 PM “…when had not for govt importing COVID barbados would have zero cases and zero deaths.”

    It is a Pan-demic.

    Have any countries escaped covid19?

  27. Mariposa Avatar
    Mariposa

    Chuh dear did Mia not say that the cases in barbados came from vistors
    Then if what she says is true with our borders closed to visitors the answer would be zero

  28. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    https://barbadostoday.bb/2020/11/15/one-new-covid-19-case-two-recoveries/

  29. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    Going to wish everyone of you a peaceful and restful night. We all manifest our love in different ways.
    HAGN

  30. TLSN Avatar
    TLSN

    A word of caution.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8951825/Normal-Christmas-Real-impact-Covid-19-vaccine-seen-summer-creator-says.html

  31. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @TLSN

    I saw Small Axe. The best thing about it was Toots and the Maytals. It is also a reminder that in the early 1960s the most popular Bob Marley song was Small Axe, it was the anthem of the black power movement in the UK.
    It sent me back to our shebeen parties. I have said before if you have lived an event, which later becomes the subject of a book or television programme, you begin to beat up yourself, since it is not exactly what you remember.
    I will give an example of what I mean. Black History Month has just finished and Scotland Yard was busy promoting the idea that Norwell Roberts was the first black police officer.
    I remember the Mangrove Nine and Roberts joining the police because they were both big events in the black community, and featured prominently in West Indian World, the leading black paper of the time.
    The problem with this is it is wrong. The first black police officer in Scotland Yard was a woman, a Jamaican, who spent three years in the force before returning home to join the Jamaican police. The Roberts myth is still on Google.
    How do I know that? Sky News did a big programme on the woman, sent crews out to Jamaica to interview her, and Scotland Yard even allowed its senior black officer, a woman commander, to be interviewed for the programme.
    So, you have Scotland Yard promoting the myth about Roberts, and this is not a reflection on him, while admitting to the historical fact, as we know it.
    The real story there was not about the nonsense of being first black police officer in Scotland Yard, but the racism she faced, both from fellow officers and the general public, including black people. She was at the sharp end, she had to face it.
    Similarly, those of us who remember the Mangrove Nine and the atmosphere around it, do not recall it as it was shown. Where were the black lawyers and support groups? Where were the black customers who crowded in to the Mangrove restaurant?
    But that is the freedom of showbiz. Shortly before Frank Critchlow died, my wife and I were talking to him at the Carnival and I suggested to him he should write a book. He said he had thought about it, but his children were not keen.
    What was not mentioned in the film was the resurrection of old laws with which to prosecute black people – riot and affray – it also ended the custom of challenging jurors on racial grounds (ie to be tried by a jury of your peers).
    Modern legal history in England and Wales has black people at the very centre. To dilute that for entertainment purposes is a wrong to future generations.
    At least it did feature a prominent racist officer who was later certified as insane. History is a funny thing. The current commissioner was 12 yrs old at the time.

  32. David Avatar
    David

    https://barbadosunderground.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/covid_chart.png

  33. Hog Food Avatar
    Hog Food

    “The two tablets worked by triggering a period if the woman was not pregnant, replacing urine sample testing which took up to a fortnight to give results. But campaigners claim it caused birth defects in their children, such as blindness, deafness, spina bifida, and heart and limb defects, or even killed their babies.”
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-46347049#:~:text=The%20two%20tablets%20worked%20by,or%20even%20killed%20their%20babies.

  34. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    ….early 1970s…….

  35. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Am I the only person suspicious that every CoVid victim discovered in Barbados happens to be a visitor? Are Barbadians immune to CoVid? What is our epidemiological model? Why are we so successful in stopping spread?
    Or, are our health officials cooking the books?
    When are they going to publish the 2019 mortality figures and those for 2020? Something smells.

  36. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Another CoVid victim, and don’t tell anyone, but it is another visitor. Boy, the president is really on top of this global pandemic. She must be a genius.
    I still want to know what is our epidemiological model? Where is the Czar? Have we ordered any of the leading vaccines, not just the waffle about doing a deal for 56000 vaccines with PAHO?
    Since each patient must receive two injections, 56000 will only treat 28000. Who are we prioritising? Will any of the vaccines be available through private doctors and clinics?

  37. David Avatar
    David

    Barbadians do not give a shit what a person living in UK covid 19 infested wants. Off to the beach today.

  38. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    Two more CoVid victims, one a male visitor, the other a Barbadian woman flying in from the US. The report does not say if she lives there or was visiting.
    Still want to see the epidemiological model.

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