Indigenous peoples are under threat

Nov 19, 2020 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – There is something terrible that is taking place. The government does not wish to admit to what is happening. But by now they should know what is happening.
If the government had been more transparent about the COVID-19 coronavirus statistics, this terrifying reality would have been obvious to everyone. But the government has not been as transparent about the coronavirus pandemic as it ought to.
Admittedly, the PPP/C’s handling (or mishandling) of the pandemic has been far more transparent than the APNU+AFC. However, enough information is still not being provided.
The virus was spreading for a long time. But because more than 40 percent of cases tend to be asymptomatic and because many persons felt that whatever symptoms they were displaying were not related to the virus, they were not concerned. The limited testing which was taking place also led to under-detection.
In its defence, the APNU+AFC has said that when it demitted office there were only 20 cases (actually it was 21). But there are a number of possible explanations for this including statistical fudging; persons dying from virus-related complications but diagnosed as having some other disease; and low levels of testing leading to low levels of detection.
In the early stages of a pandemic deaths will be low, but as time progresses and as the economy opens up, the numbers will spike – as we are seeing now in Europe and the United States of America. The APNU+AFC should not be finding any comfort in the death rate when it was in office. If the Coalition was using empirical modelling, they would have known that the reproduction number is what they should have been looking at.
It is the reproduction number which gives the rate of infection not the death rate. And at one stage between March and the end of July, the reproduction rate, according to a PAHO official, was as 3.5 which means that the virus was spreading far more than the numbers were indicating.
The PPP/C has not indicated the present reproduction number. But it is not likely to be anywhere near 3.5 because if that were the case the situation would have been worse.
There is at present a national calamity. The indigenous population is bearing the brunt of the coronavirus infections. This column and one letter writer have already provided the empirical evidence that the per capita infection rates are far higher in the hinterland Regions than on the coastal Regions.
Recent evidence suggests that the indigenous communities are under the greatest threat now from the COVID-19 coronavirus. Mass testing has revealed frightening infection rates at St Cuthbert’s Mission, Kwebana and now Wakapoa. Previously the Pomeroon area had been identified as a hot spot. The limited information provided from Region Two shows that there were recorded cases in a number of indigenous communities.
Many persons were fooled into believing that the safest place to be was in the interior. The sparse population, small human settlements and slow pace of life in those areas would appear to be conducive to insulation from the virus.
But that was never the case. Brazil has the second highest number of coronavirus deaths. In that country, indigenous communities were seriously affected by the virus. In some indigenous settlements close to the border with Peru, as many as seven out of every 10 indigenous residents were infected. The death rate in the indigenous communities was higher than elsewhere in Brazil. The same thing happened in Mexico.
Guyana, therefore, should have been forewarned. However, the absence of transparency led to a blackout of vital information which could have detected this problem earlier.
The public simply is not being provided with useful data. The Ministry of Health is still not providing information on tests per Region and active cases per Region.
Guyana has more than 200 indigenous communities. Mass testing now has to be a priority for those communities. Antigen testing kits should have already arrived in the country. India has also developed a very accurate saliva test which gives rapid results. Whatever testing methods are available should be deployed immediately to these more than 200 communities.
Unless there is mass testing now the reproduction number will reach the stage where it can pose as an existential threat to the indigenous communities. To put it bluntly, the indigenous community can shrink unless the spread of the virus is contained within hinterland communities.
The Minister of Indigenous Affairs has been very quiet on this matter. She should take the lead in protecting her people before the virus demolishes the indigenous population.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)