Dear Editor,
This COVID-19 pandemic is making people do all kinds of strange things, playing many tricks. I share a couple of eye-catching developments from around the world, to emphasize the lengths that some are going to get moving with virus matters.
I start here, right in this sickly homeland. I observe that COVID-19 has become an all-purpose antibiotic and answer for every circumstance, no matter how way out. As examples, I share the experiences of some people. Calls and reports for routine service to utilities that took a week or so, now don’t get fixed. It’s the COVID-19, stupid. I know somebody waiting months now for resolution of two issues involving two companies; it is the royal Guyanese run around plastered over by COVID-19. Try calling some places, and it is to the dead: nothing doing, everybody enjoying eternal rest. I recalled the new government opening things up with fanfare, and emphasizing that it was vital things return to a state of normalcy in a hurry. They did: the good old ways and the newer ones.
Many reassured themselves that there was nothing to fear and that reports of the virus were exaggeration and hoax. Still others opined that it was a political ploy to keep people in their place, under the boot. Now if I were a vehement fellow, I would fall for that one, but sanity lingers. And this is why I am alarmed by the skeptics and reckless congregating at their favoured congregations for doses of antiseptic (so they say) like there was no tomorrow. Sometimes, I am tempted to join the fun. After all, what’s the harm, since the spirits are known to be tonic, germicidal, laxative, curative (in Guyanese, what doesn’t kill, cures), and life extending.
Then, there are those who are sensible enough to admit that this virus does exist and can be lethal who have gone to excess with the smokes and shots. What could be the rationale this time? I should have guessed: stress buster. Whatever the Guyanese outlook, the frightening COVID-19 assaults have served as cover to cross over into the magic realm of furnishing one cure-all after another to fit every Guyanese situation, where slackness and ‘dotishness’ are the order of the day, be such from the workplace, the drinking place, the places of the state, or the private commercial places, including herbal ones. The irony of ironies is that the COVID-19 sickness has caused Guyanese to use it for their own sick purposes. It is like blaming dead persons or sacked colleagues for every wrong. They can’t speak from wherever they are. I call it Guyanese ingenuity and adaptability.
Moving over to the Kremlin, which I was sure would delight PPP hearts, until I remember that its leaders are now all rabid capitalists. Remember that one about the converted being purer than the real thing? Well, the PPP powers aren’t taking any chances with those Yankees, they have no use anymore for Vladimir. But that same Vladimir okayed creating a new crisis to manage an existing one in the face of overwhelming COVID-19 menaces: anyone who receives the vaccine cannot have any liquor for two months. I repeat: not two days, but two whole months, and this is in vodka swilling Russia. Even Stalin at his worst, could not dream up such a macabre cocktail. This is worse than being sent to Siberia, and all because of some debatable virus.
Then from the Holy Land, the unholy came. Prime Minister Netanyahu said he would be the first to get the vaccine. What was that again? He would jump the line to “set an example.” What a virus smartie! He must be a coronavirus comic and weisenheimer to come up with stuff like that lame-brained cover story. Where does this madness stop? I know where: the man that casts a shroud over the White House would step forward to claim that he found the cure. Or his high-profile, hospitalized aide, New York City’s own Rudy, swearing that the Democrats ‘do he something’. Now even I am losing my marbles, as I am making fun of world leaders and sick men, which is the same thing. Blame it on COVID-19. What else!
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
