There has always been a tendency, even in circumstances of presumed emergency, for Guyanese, on the whole, to strike a ‘business as usual posture,’ or else to trust what we customarily call ‘pot luck,’ that whatever danger may be ‘out there,’ we will, somehow, ‘dodge the bullet.’
Two weeks after the first coronavirus fatality here and reports of other cases (up until now the number appears to be small but unclear) there may well be evidence that we may be again going down the same road of indifference.
Take a stroll into downtown George-town and you cannot fail to notice the sense of casualness, the impish pushback against cautions about ‘social distancing’ and about upgrading standards of hygiene. The handful of days, a week or so ago, when stores were flooded with seekers of soaps and sterilizers are behind us. What lies ahead is unclear.
