A GUY'S VIEW - Hard ears and own way

There was a time in Barbados when parents applied strict discipline to their children. In fact, there was a time when any adult could discipline any child. In those days, visiting of corporal punishment was often punctuated with verbal advice. One common piece of advice was, “hard ears yuh won’t hear, own way yuh gine feel”.

It was common for every word in that advice to be introduced by a lash with some object. If a child was lucky, the object would be no more than a belt: if the child was lucky.

That was sage advice. In a different culture, a good parent might have said that if a child would not pay attention and heed parental guidance, he or she would suffer the consequences. But that form of words could never have got the message home to a rebellious Bajan child.

In the current COVID-19 crisis, there has been a lot of hard ears people, and now the entire country is suffering the consequences.

This is one disease that no one could complain about not having enough information. Official Government sources were giving advice from early on, but even if one were not paying attention to them, or did not trust them, every other form of media was doing the same thing, even if some of it was bogus.

Government tried to control what persons could say about our circumstances on social media, but, maybe, even inaccurate information, in this case, could be helpful in sensitizing Barbadians about the serious nature of the disease.

The reaction of Barbadians to the management of this pandemic clearly suggests that they do not trust the information put out by Government. When the country was being told that there were no cases of coronavirus here, people were saying, “they think we foolish!”

And at every release of an official number of cases, there was dispute in the supermarket lines and in work offices. There was just a general disbelief of the official information.

The professionals assembled to manage the process advised about the social behaviour that would be necessary to stop the spread of the virus. Principal in that process was social distancing. People were told to stay at home if they could, and not to assemble in groups. While there was some adherence to that advice, too many people ignored it.

And then there were the ineffective measures that were implemented to limit the spread. Only a small number of persons could be admitted into business establishments at any one time. But no one factored in what this would do to those outside waiting to enter. While five or ten people were inside shopping in a wide space, 200 were outside, standing shoulder to shoulder, talking and cussing. Casual observation would show that this exercise would have done nothing to prevent the spread of the virus.

I had occasion to pass by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and was shocked at what I saw. After informing the public that they would have to store medicines for at least two months, the hospital implemented a rule that only a small number of persons at one time could go to their dispensary for drugs. To manage this process, they erected two large tents in an open area outside the hospital and provided seating. The tents were so full that some persons were standing. There could not have been 12 inches between those persons. And this was set up by the principal health care facility.

When one looks at these measures, it seems that the persons who put them in place were thinking only about the staff of the facilities. They were the only ones who might have felt a little comfortable with the smaller numbers before them. No one else benefitted, for the systems made no one safer and were directly responsible for creating tension and panic.

There was, and probably still is, something peculiar about the Government’s management of this process. There was nothing done here that was novel to Barbados. Every measure implemented here was seen on television in almost every other country. Except one. While countries locked down their borders, refusing even to take their own citizens, this country’s borders remained open.

That continues to be a mystery.

It was not rocket science that if the virus reached our shores, it would have to be imported. With this knowledge, it seemed obvious that any defensive strategy would have had to include closing our borders. We still have not. As a consequence, the cases continue to mount. We are lucky that other countries have prohibited travel and airlines are grounded.

If you place ten healthy people in a room and let no one in, those persons would likely remain healthy, unless something comes in through the air. But you do them no favours by bringing people who are either sick, or whose status you do not know, into the room with them. Keeping our borders open and bringing in people who may be sick is not helping us to control the spread of the virus in this country.

You are placing a plaster on a life sore when you bring in potentially sick people and place them in quarantine for two weeks. To follow this path, you have to find quarantine facilities. You have to find important people to manage those facilities. You have to provide food for the people held there. And you potentially infect the people who are servicing them.

Every infected person is a potential danger to other people. They have families with whom they must interact, at least until they know that they are infected. Those family members may have jobs, some of which may be essential. They come into contact with others who are then exposed, along with their families.

Hard ears behaviour always has consequences. In this case, an entire country is in danger. Since we do not intend to stop bringing dangerous people into the country, Barbadians must do what they can to protect themselves.

Follow the best medical advice, and stay home.