As the world continues to battle the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and its devastating effects, the citizenry of Georgetown is calling on the Public Health Ministry to ramp up its awareness campaigns to dispel the misinformation being peddled.
Mark Seymour
The Public Health Ministry, according to the citizens, needs to be more proactive in its approach of how it intends to tackle the deadly virus. Since Guyana confirmed its first case of COVID-19 just over two weeks ago, that number has grown to 5 along with multiple others in mandatory quarantine.
However, Guyanese are of the view that the Ministry is not being entirely truthful with the number of persons who are suspected to have COVID-19. This conclusion was drawn after MoPH has been failing to provide specific numbers as to who is in quarantine and being monitored.
Additionally, false information is being rapidly shared on the various social media platforms which has been causing some amount of panic among residents.
In an effort to gauge the public’s knowledge of what exactly they understand COVID-19 to be, Guyana Times took to the streets of Georgetown where it learnt that the common call is for there to be more awareness. Apart from the ordinary citizens in the streets, activists across the spectrum have been calling on MoPH to provide daily briefings so that the nation remains informed and not relying on the incorrect information being pedalled on social media.
Leroy Wickham
“We have been taking necessary precautions to have the areas around us sanitised and try to up our personal hygiene in terms of washing our hands. I think there should be more awareness. I think the fear in people do not allow them to get into depths with actual know how to deal with it. The fear is so overwhelming that people do not know how to deal with it,” Mark Seymour explained during a conversation with this publication.
Another Guyanese, 45-year-old Leroy Wickham stated that he and his family have been using home remedies and is taking social distancing seriously.
“We have a bucket home where we use bleach and high wine and throw inside the water and we wash our hands. I cannot say much on the measures the Ministry has put forward because I was not following all of the guides. But I will take the normal precautions with my own home remedies,” Wickham said.
In an effort to further encourage proper hygiene and the washing of hands, the Rotary Club of Georgetown Central collaborated with the Guyana Water Inc to install public handwashing stations at the Stabroek Market Square. That was commissioned on Sunday and has been lauded by its beneficiaries.
“When we are at home, we are washing our hands with soap and when we come out on the road, we use the hand sanitiser. I believe that there needs to be more campaigning about how we are going to deal with the coronavirus. I think they should go out and help the poor people with some hand sanitiser and Georgetown needs more areas where you can get public hand sanitising areas,” those were the sentiments of 40-year-old Janet Smith as she washed her hands at the recently commissioned handwashing station.
Guyana received its first imported case of the COVID-19 over two weeks ago when a 52-year-old woman travelled from New York to Guyana on March 5. The woman showed signs of pneumonia and was said to be diabetic as well.
It was reported that she visited a private medical institution where she was suspected of having the virus, owing to her symptoms, and was referred to the Georgetown Public Hospital where she died a few days later.
Posthumous tests revealed she was positive for COVID-19. Further tests have revealed that her husband, child and a relative are all carriers of the virus.
In fact, last week President David Granger signed a Public Health Ordinance that gave Volda Lawrence new far-reaching ministerial powers in order to confront the coronavirus pandemic, with citizens saying that it has no direct measures listed to combat the deadly disease since it was just “copied and pasted” from a 1945 health ordinance by the incumbent coalition Government without being revised.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released an assessment in which it ranks Guyana among the few countries in the region least prepared to deal with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly the negative effects it will have on the economy and tourism.
In the assessment, the IMF rated countries in the Americas from red (least prepared) to green (most prepared). Countries like the United States and Canada were in the green zone. However, Guyana, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras are not so lucky.
According to the World Health Organisation, coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV).
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a new strain that was discovered in 2019 and has not been previously identified in humans. Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people.
Common signs of infection include respiratory symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, the infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death.
Standard recommendations to prevent infection spread include regular hand washing, covering mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing, thoroughly cooking meat and eggs and avoiding close contact with anyone showing symptoms of respiratory illness such as coughing and sneezing.
Additionally, the MoPH advises that the only facility in Guyana that is capable of testing for COVID-19 is the National Reference Lab operated by the Ministry.
Local health authorities have advised that if anyone is experiencing symptoms of coronavirus, they should contact the hotline on 231-1166, 624-3067, 624-2819 or 624-6674 and a team would be sent to their location.
