#BTEditorial – Panicking, ignorance over Covid-19 helps no one.

The news that Jamaica has become the first in the Anglophone region to test positive for the presence of the novel form of coronavirus, dubbed Covid-19 will sorely test a number of much-vaunted values and virtues of our Caribbean Community.

Our healthcare system, groaning under the weight of patient overcrowding, budget cuts and nursing shortage is our last bastion of defence against rampant spread of the viral infection.

It will test our regional bloc, where many were anticipating that Caribbean integration will be challenged like never before for its efficacy and relevance.

And the outcome of the illness, the extent to which we contain or propel the spread of viral infection, will put to the test our education system.

We continue to be baffled by the more peculiar and disturbing aspects of our so-called information age; that despite having access to greater information of higher quality and quantity than at any other time in human history, people prefer to dwell in ignorance bliss.

The latest example of a sort of cave-dwelling attitude towards facts, reason and knowledge is evident in the current scare of the novel Human Coronavirus, now named Covid-19.

As for regional integration, we can at least note a gratifying camaraderie among regional leaders in response to Prime Minister Mottley’s all-too-brief but competent chairmanship of CARICOM. Commitment and working to a plan will all be needed to defeat this bug.

But we feel compelled to reiterate our warning that profound civic ignorance is the greatest threat to the stability of this democracy; it will certainly do public health no favours here either.

We are convinced that the current scare over Covid-19 is wrapped up in a melange of ignorance, prejudice, and yes, anti-Chinese racism.

The virus currently spreading rapidly throughout one of our closest continental neighbours, killing the young and the old, relentless as it is widespread, is influenza. And it currently afflicts at latest estimate between 16 and 17 million Americans. Thousands will be infected today and thousands more infected tomorrow.

Yet because of blissful ignorance, many will neglect to perform the most basic hygiene by hand-washing, coughing or sneezing into the crook of an arm or even a handkerchief, rather than in someone else’s face on the bus. Many are ready to don masks sooner than avoid touching their faces. Others will shout racial abuse again Chinese people.

In this region, the merest inkling of individuals being submitted for quarantine has become instant proof to some that this new strain of human coronavirus is already here.

This mindless panic ultimately does no one any good save to stir up strife, to the delight of those who hate peace, joy, and goodwill, who seek to make the lives of their fellow Barbadians as wretched as their own.

Facts, those stubborn, persistent, immovable objects, are what will save our necks, not mass imports of gloves and masks.

The response of large numbers of Caribbean people is hardly different than European people’s during the Middle Ages when the “Black Death” – bubonic plague – spread like wildfire across a continent.

Death and disease were fuelled not by knowledge but by superstition, suspicion and ignorance. But back then, only monks possessed knowledge.

The words “ignorant” and “ignorance” have a peculiar place in the Barbadian nation language.

These really suggest much more than merely not knowing something. There is a willful intent in the Bajan use of the word “ignorance”. It is a disdainful word, a word that suggests that an ignorant person ought to be shunned.

We are not calling for the shunning of people. It is fake messages that are not verifiable, provable facts or sound medical advice which we sorely need to shun.

Compassion for the sick, and sensible and careful and application of preventive measures by the healthy are what will see us through, not just human coronavirus, but any other contagious bug, right down to the common cold.

The information is readily available, sourced from reputable institutions and organisations like the Ministry of Health, which is charged with looking after Barbadians every single day.

Until an effective treatment is found, the Ministry of Health says you can reduce your risk of infection by washing your hands with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, and keeping your hands away from your face. Experts have said that while this may be a new virus, it is similar to many others that have affected people over the years.

Diseases like COVID-19 do not need to be treated differently than any other respiratory diseases around, including influenza and bronchitis. Panicking does not help us.

Other health officials stressed the importance of being vaccinated against the flu, to avoid getting both influenza and the coronavirus at the same time.

Critical thinking skills, a respect for facts, an honest quest for truth, and a sense of balance, proportion and justice should be the hallmarks of an education system that we seek to develop.

We have seen in this crisis, countries large and small, allow politics to trump public health science.

But Barbadians do not have the luxury of lurching from one crisis to the other, blissfully unaware of fundamental facts of science, history, geography, and even mathematics.

Knowledge is power. And we continue to disempower and disenfranchise ourselves if we embrace a new culture of a lust for lies.

Over to you, now.