Rupununi Chamber of Commerce urges urgent closure of border

The Rupununi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) has called on the National COVID-19 Task Force to close Guyana’s border with Brazil for the next three months, as the neighbouring country is now considered South America’s epicentre for the virus.

In a statement to the media on Tuesday, the Chamber indicated that Guyana does not have the capacity to handle a stark increase in cases and locally, health authorities have already been confronted with new cases.
As such, the recommendation has been made for the border to be opened only when it is deemed safe, since Brazilians will come into the country for various reasons if the opportunity is provided. Furthermore, most of the past visitors came from villages which have been highly impacted by COVID-19.
“Presently, Guyana does not have the capacity to handle any drastic increase of the infection of our population. The number of positive COVID-19 cases have been slowly climbing and in order to ensure that this does not get out of control, we need to ensure the Guyana-Brazil border remains closed to people traffic until the situation in Brazil is under control,” RCCI said.
Two months ago, the Guyana-Brazil international border at the Takutu River Bridge was officially closed, in effort to prevent a spread of the deadly coronavirus, especially in Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and throughout the Rupununi. Since then, only priority goods are allowed to enter Guyana on Thursdays, after a sanitisation process by the Public Health Ministry and the Guyana Livestock Development Authority (GLDA).
“So far, it seems that the decision to close the border is justified and has helped in a significant way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 Guyana into Lethem and the wider Rupununi Region. Brazil is now the second most infected country in the world and in the State of Roraima the infection rate is increasing by almost 100 persons every day,” the Chamber recognised.
It shared that on any normal day, hundreds of Brazilians from the Northern States of Brazil would visit Lethem to shop for merchandise and return to Brazil. These persons would not normally be required to undergo any major checks upon entering the Port Complex at Lethem and most times a visual check is conducted by Guyanese authorities of the persons entering and leaving.
The Task Force was cautioned, “Some of these persons come from Manaus, which is almost 1000 km away from Lethem. Manaus presently has over 29,000 persons infected and Boa Vista almost 2500. Presently, hospitals in both cities are overwhelmed with patients. The recovery rate is slow and the death rate continues to climb.”
Additionally, gold prices would attract Brazilians to travel to Georgetown and throughout the interior locations for emplopyment, carrying a mighty risk of COVID-19 with them.
At present, there has been no indication as to when the curfew and partial lockdown will be relaxed, even as Government proposed a June 3 timeline.