#BTEditorial – White coats and expert opinions

“It is based on the science. . . . We are following the science”

These statements have been used by many sides of the vaccine and COVID-19 pandemic debate. Governments have used the assertions, anti-vaxxers, information programmes, as well as disinformation campaigns.

This state of affairs has served only to confuse citizens to the point where a sizeable portion of our population does not know whom they should trust, which information is credible, and what ought to be rejected out of hand.

Just as Trinidadian kaiso master Dr Hollis Liverpool a.k.a. Mighty Chalkdust sang Too Much Quacks And Invalids, in our case it is not the “kaiso boat” that is overcrowded, but the field of quasi medical professionals.

One cannot hide from the peddlers on YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and various websites touting all sorts of advice on COVID-19, vaccines, Vitamin D, Zinc, and all manner of prescriptions.

Everyone is an expert, and all contenders are claiming to be “following the science”.

What is the ordinary citizen to do in such circumstances? The level of information overload is doing nothing but adding to the stress of our daily lives. COVID-19 fatigue is probably a psychiatric syndrome now worthy of its own field of study.

For two years, our children’s education has been disrupted to an extent that we will only fully understand in about five to ten years when the current crop of pandemic children reach young adulthood.

In some cases, we may not have to wait that long because hundreds of children have left the secondary school system during this period with unattained academic goals and few opportunities to get their education on track.

We, therefore, welcome Government’s commitment to reopen schools, though we are obviously concerned about the level of planning and thoroughness going into the return of face-to-face classes in another week.

There are worries about our public transportation system and the ability to maintain COVID-19 protocols with thousands of schoolchildren on the streets after several months of online education. It is going to be a serious adjustment for children and teachers. Too many children have spent many of their days in vacation mode, playing and running around neighbourhoods, rather than in structured classes.

But our focus is on the barrage of conflicting information that is coming from medical professionals and other officials who all claim to be following the science. A former COVID pandemic evidence-synthesis advisor to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), Dr Paul Alexander, insists that the science shows children do not transmit the virus to other children or adults.

Well, that was a shocker. If the well-credentialed Dr Alexander is correct, the Barbados government and health authorities were completely wrong and ill-advised to shut down our schools and disrupt the education and lives of our children and families for two years. We are being tongue and cheek on this one.

During a webinar entitled Considering Current Global Pandemic Threats, Are COVID-19 Vaccines Necessary For Children And The Wider Barbadian Population? hosted by some religious/spiritual groups in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, Dr Alexander argued: “When we look at all of the science today, it shows that children are at such low risk that children actually should be allowed to be in in-person school with normal, routine contact…. We are speaking based on the science and the science has been clear 23 months now that children have near zero risk. We should have never, ever, ever, ever, ever closed schools.”

We are in no position as editorial writers to challenge Dr Alexander on the science. But the COVID-19 deaths in Barbados, including those of children under the age of 18, the serious ill who survived to tell the tale are clear rebuttals to the doctor’s suggestion.

A simple Google search of Dr Alexander raises very serious questions about the opinions he has given on the pandemic and his actions while a member of the Donald Trump administration in the United States of America.

Dr Alexander was seen for several days up front and centre at the debilitating truckers protest in the Canadian capital of Ottawa, now spreading the United States. He has also reportedly promoted the jailing of public officials who advocate COVID-19 vaccines and other pandemic policies.

“There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing the non-high-risk groups to expose themselves to the virus. PERIOD,” said the doctor in December 2020, while he was an advisor to former president Trump.

The suggested policy was blasted as reckless and one that would endanger the lives of millions of Americans because it promoted a policy where the strongest and healthiest survived and the others were left to fate.

We believe that all views should be allowed to contend. However, in the middle of a pandemic that continues to take lives and disrupt our society, we suggest caution on the part of groups seeking to promote “experts” whose professional opinions are not passing the smell test.