#BTEditorial – The risk of losing it all for short-term pleasure

The coronavirus pandemic is teaching some very hard lessons to those unwilling to learn from the experiences of others. 

Even more important, in this battle against this notoriously dangerous unseen killer, it is evidently useless for political leaders to claim victory until or if ever their citizens are in possession and protected by a safe and effective vaccine.

And so it is particularly interesting to watch what is unfolding in places like New Zealand, the country heralded as the COVID-19 global darling, and just next door, CARICOM neighbour Trinidad and Tobago, with its zealously protective Minister of National Security Stuart Young.

After celebrating New Zealand’s momentous achievement of flattening the curve, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern became the COVID-19 flavour of the month, cheered by her countrymen and global onlookers at her country’s impressive job at beating back the virus.

She happily allowed contact sports to resume, bars and restaurants were reopened, and stadiums were filled for events. New Zealanders became the happiest people on earth.

Then came last weekend’s shocker. Ardern announced that the country’s general elections scheduled to take place in four weeks would be postponed because of a COVID-19 outbreak in the City of Auckland. A cluster of 58 new COVID-19 cases had been uncovered, frustrating a country that was on an anti-COVID high.

Ironically, on the same weekend as the New Zealand announcement, newly re-elected Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley whose People’s National Movement had just squeezed a narrow election victory over the rival United National Congress, made a surprising declaration. Trinidad and Tobago was going back into a significant lockdown as COVID-19 cases made a dramatic jump in the twin-island republic.

To-date, Trinidad and Tobago has 413 active COVID-19 cases and 12 deaths. Of the 565 total positive cases on the island since testing began in March, there have been 140 recoveries. A total of 149 people are in hospital there requiring some level of care.

The Trinidadian scenario is particularly worrisome because its leadership had been extremely aggressive in its stance on repatriations with the closure of its borders, even to citizens of the republic who found themselves on the outside when the pandemic hit.

National Security Minister Stuart Young has been harsh in his tone and approach. One only has to recall the treatment meted out to 33 elderly Trinidadian nationals who were holed up in Barbados for several weeks because of Young’s stubborn position.

We accept that this COVID-19 pandemic is fluid and that decisions proclaimed today can be rendered obsolete and irrelevant tomorrow. But one thing that Trinidad and Tobago and New Zealand have taught us is not to become so impressed with our own fleeting victories over this disease that we become complacent. COVID-19 will embarrass us when we least expect it.

In Barbados, we are struggling to revive our economic fortunes after the devastation caused by enforced shutdowns. Company after company is reporting significant losses on their balance sheets. Yes, tourism is returning and some hotels are announcing their reopening.

In the background lurks a creeping uptick in the number of COVID-19 cases as it appears that with every international flight that lands at the Grantley Adams International Airport, a new case or two of COVID-19 arrives. 

We desperately need economic activity. The thousands of unemployed Barbadians need to return to the active workforce. Businesses need consumers and consumers need to have salaries. It’s a cycle that has to be fulfilled.

And while the COVID-19 Monitoring Unit continues its patrols at night inspecting night clubs, bars and other places of entertainment, it is time that citizens do more to police themselves or this whole effort will collapse on itself.

We cannot have millions of dollars being spent to test, trace and treat, while some of us seek to satisfy our own selfish desires; the country be damned they are really saying.

So just look across the waters to Trinidad and Tobago. Our economy cannot withstand another crippling shutdown. Households on the brink cannot endure more unemployment. It is time that we have the discipline to deny ourselves in the short-term so that we may all have the pleasures of a return to normalcy in the long term.