“Sit it out” – Nagamootoo tells Guyanese stranded overseas

…as 34 Guyanese in NYC die from COVID-19

Head of the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF), caretaker Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo is telling Guyanese who are stranded overseas to stay put and await the reopening of Guyana’s airspace, which has been closed to incoming commercial flights since mid-March.

Days after the country recorded its first imported case of the COVID-19 on March 11, authorities closed all its borders, including the two major airports, to incoming commercial flights until May 1, 2020, as part of efforts to curb the spread of the deadly virus.

Guyanese overseas
However, during a virtual press briefing on Saturday, Nagamootoo said there are thousands of Guyanese overseas who have made requests to return home.
“We are aware of requests from Guyanese up to [Friday] that they want to come back home and we’ve said we are on a lockdown of our airspace and no flights would come in until such a time as the order expires, it is varied or amended,” he posited.
Among those Guyanese waiting to return home are an estimated 200 cruise workers; some 80 persons in Miami, Florida, and another 10,000-plus in New York.
But according to Nagamootoo, the coalition Administration will have to monitor the local cases and the impact of COVID-19 here before making any decisions to reopen the airspace to incoming flights earlier than May 1.
“I cannot say, at the moment, that any such consideration [to review the airspace closure] is active. So, Guyanese overseas, we empathise with you and we know you wanna come back home. For various reasons, you might have gone on business and you wanna come back home. We’d empathise with you and we’d like to see you back home. But for the moment, we’d like to see you sit it out for a while longer until we’re able to give ourselves some space to be able to deal with the number of cases here and see if we can do proper contact tracing and that we’re able to reduce the number of imported cases into the country,” he noted.
Currently, Guyana has 45 confirmed COVID-19 cases with six deaths. Two of those deaths have been deemed imported cases. Days after returning home from New York, a 52-year-old woman died at the Georgetown Public Hospital and was subsequently tested positive for the novel coronavirus. She was considered an imported case and being the country’s first case, is referred to as ‘patient zero’.
Her husband and son, along with several other family members here including a 13-year-old had tested positive for the virus. However, they have since recovered after being treated in isolation, and were recently released.
Meanwhile, a 78-year-old resident of New Amsterdam, Berbice, in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) died on April 1 also at GPHC and is also considered an imported case, having travelled from the United States recently. She was Guyana’s third COVID-19 death.
It is further suspected that a 38-year-old miner, who was the fifth death, is also an imported case as he recently returned from neighbouring Brazil.

No incoming flights
Nevertheless, the NCTF Head further noted that it is estimated there will be thousands of Guyanese returning once the airspace reopens, and steps are being made to facilitate them.
“…We [have to] complete the arrangement to have facilities for the quarantining of persons who come from overseas. Whenever that happens, they will have to subject themselves to the quarantining procedures. We have to have facilities and this will be for thousands of persons who may wish to come,” Nagamootoo asserted.
He went on to say that while they would like all those Guyanese who are “stuck” overseas to be back home, those persons have to understand the challenges that the country is facing to limit the spread of the infectious disease.
“Should everyone want to come back at the same time, it will overwhelm our medical and physical capacity to accommodate them and to give them the type of treatment they deserve as Guyanese who are returning to their homeland,” he contended.
However, while Government is not allowing any incoming flights, it has facilitated several specially requested ‘relief flights’ for foreign nationals here, including Americans, Canadians and British citizens, to fly home. It is estimated that close to 1000 persons, with over 800 Americans, have been repatriated already and another chartered flight has been approved for Tuesday.

34 Guyanese died in NYC
Meanwhile, during Saturday’s virtual media engagement, Nagamootoo also disclosed that 34 Guyanese citizens in New York have died from COVID-19.
“We have received a partial list from the Consulate in New York and that partial list has placed the number at 34,” he stated.
This, the caretaker PM contended, is not a global list and does not reflect COVID-related deaths of Guyanese from other countries or even other states in the US.
According to Nagamootoo, “…Guyanese live and work everywhere on this planet and so we will continue to rely on our [Foreign] Missions to feed us that information.”
New York is said to be home to the largest Guyanese diaspora abroad. Against this backdrop, the Consulate General of Guyana in New York, Barbara Atherly, has created a special Facebook page – ‘Honoring Guyanese lost to Coronavirus’ – for persons to share loved ones who have died from the virus.
As of Saturday evening, the deaths of 34 Guyanese were shared on the social media page. Among those listed are a businessman who owned a travel service in New Amsterdam; a former national Under-18 captain of a local football team; a prominent community leader and member of the Guyana Cultural Association of New York and a 34-year-old clerk who registered patients in the emergency room at Long Island Jewish Forest Hills Hospital in NYC.

Reopening borders for essential items

On the other hand, even as Guyana’s borders, including its airspace, remain closed to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus, authorities are reopening its ports to facilitate shipments of essential items.
“The port services are very important and so we have open up the ports so that ships can come in and they can offload, and they can have freights delivered to places they ought to be delivered so that we are not restricting importation of goods and we’re not restricting certain services. For example, if someone is involved in construction… Construction is an essential work particularly and specifically for health facilities, then there will be no such restriction within the 24 hours,” he noted.
The NCTF Head further stated that they have also had constructive engagements with the Private Sector including those from mining, forestry, oil and gas sectors, food distributors, among others.