The announcement a matter of days ago by the Dominican-born Director of the Pan American Health Organisation Dr Carissa Etienne, that between them, Latin America and the Caribbean have now chalked up in excess of a million Covid-19 casualties, came just at that point in time when Caribbean countries, faced with some measure of indifference to strict observance of the related protocols as well as to the taking of the prescribed vaccines, had begun to double down on the strictures, not least curfews and complete lockdowns, in a desperate hope to fend off what is believed to be a second, possibly more virulent strain of the virus.
The macabre milestone provided yet another reason for the PAHO top official to remind those remaining largely indifferent pockets of people in the region to desist from facing down the pandemic, though here in Guyana and elsewhere in the region it appears that the authorities are facing a pushback not just from the populace as a whole but also from large chunks of a private sector complaining of the economic burden that continues to be imposed by restraints on trading.
Moreover, Dr. Etienne used the occasion of her distressing announcement to remind the international community that small though the Caribbean is in terms of numbers, we are still some distance away from receiving the numbers of vaccines necessary to satisfy the overall regional need.
The actual number of dead in the hemisphere, up to last Friday, was 1,001,781, by far the larger numbers (89%) occurring in five countries: Brazil (44.3 per cent), México (22.1 per cent), Colombia (8.3 per cent), Argentina (7.3 per cent) and Peru (6.7 per cent). The numbers, Dr. Etienne says, are a grim reminder that the pandemic is far from over “and that it is hitting Latin America and the Caribbean severely, affecting our health, our economies and entire societies.” The irony is, according to the PAHO official, that “only about three per cent of our citizens have been vaccinated.”
Of a reported 153 million persons immunised in the Americas up to the time of this report, only 21.6% of these have been in Latin America and the Caribbean. Three per cent of the Covid-19 fatalities have occurred in Central America and 1% in the Caribbean where the population numbers are lowest.
Etienne argues that since the region is an epicentre for the pandemic it should also be an epicentre for vaccination.
Apart from urging persons in Latin America to have the vaccinations, Etienne is also asking that countries with extra doses donate these to Latin America and the Caribbean
