By Raffique Shah
April 14, 2020
Large mobs of presumably hungry consumers virtually laid siege to fast-foods restaurants across the country last Monday evening after Prime Minister Keith Rowley announced that all restaurants and retail food services will be closed for business until the end of this month. Embedded in that eruption was a conundrum this country faces as it battles the COVID-19 virus.
Continue reading Hooked on foreign foods
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 13, 2020
“They say the sun will shine for all/But in some people’s world, it doesn’t shine at all./ So much been said, so little been done./ They still killing the people/ And they having their fun”
—Bob Marley, “Crisis”
PART 3
I have been writing about the plight of black people in Trinidad and Tobago for a while. Like Marvin Gaye, sometimes it “make me wanna holler/The way they do my life” (“Inner City Blues”). I have argued that we will never solve black impoverishment unless we see it as a national problem that demands the same resolve that we brought to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Continue reading Black Betrayal (In the Age of the Coronavirus)
April 6, 2020 – outbreaknewstoday.com
Both surgical and cotton masks were found to be ineffective for preventing the dissemination of SARS-CoV-2 from the coughs of patients with COVID-19. A study conducted at two hospitals in Seoul, South Korea, found that when COVID-19 patients coughed into either type of mask, droplets of virus were released to the environment and external mask surface. A brief research report is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Continue reading Neither surgical nor cotton masks effectively filter SARS COV-2: Study
Dr. Ioannidis on Why We Don’t Have Reliable Data Surrounding COVID-19
By Journeyman Pictures – YouTube
April 3, 2020
As the coronavirus pandemic tightens its grip across the world, is the reaction a fiasco in the making? Stanford University professor Dr John Ioannidis lifts the lid on our worrying lack of reliable data.
Continue reading Perspectives on the Pandemic
By Stephen Kangal
March 30, 2020
The PNM Government in categorically refusing to arrange entry/arrival home of 35 of our elderly nationals and having forced Barbados to quarantine them somewhere at their own expense when they arrived at Grantley Adams Airport from South Africa via the UK is in flagrant violation of customary law on the treatment of nationals, consular duty and indeed plain humanitarianism.
Continue reading Inhumane Treatment of Our Elderly In Barbados
By Raffique Shah
March 29, 2020
In time to come, when future generations write about us, about our behaviour during the great war against COVID-19, they may well resort to the Charles Dickens’ classic, A Tale of Two Cities, which was set in a tumultuous period in European and world history, 1775-1792. Dickens opened his tale thus: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us…in short…some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only…”
Continue reading Best of times, worst of times
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 24, 2020
I am not a particularly religious man (spiritual is a better adjective to describe my theological persuasion), so I do not believe that God sent the coronavirus to teach us a lesson. However, we can learn a lot from our present challenges.
Lesson One: We must become a more mature society.
Continue reading Surrendering ME for the WE
By Stephen Kangal
March 23, 2020
We must take into judicious account today that The People’s Republic of China (PRC) with whom T&T enjoys cordial and mutually – beneficial fruitful diplomatic and trade relations is afloat and awash with a huge windfall of trillions of hard currency US dollars silos derived from unending trade surpluses realised especially with the USA and increasingly with the rest of the World.
Continue reading China Must Pay Covid-19 Compensation and Reparations
Journalist goes undercover at “wet markets”, where the Coronavirus started | 60 Minutes Australia
Mar 8, 2020 – The predictions about the coronavirus catastrophe grow more ominous by the day, and despite the best efforts of countries like Australia in enacting emergency action plans to contain the disease, its spread continues at a worrying rate. Even the World Health Organisation forecasts a world of pain. It says the virus poses a greater global threat than terrorism. That’s bad enough, but medical experts tell 60 MINUTES it’s actually even more terrifying.
Continue reading COVID-19: Not just a flu
By Raffique Shah
March 23, 2020
I admit that it took me some time to come to terms with the seriousness of the COVID-19 virus. When the highly contagious bug first struck in China late last year, I followed its development with more curiosity than concern. China is a vast country with a huge population and millions of foreigners visiting it most times, so one could expect anything to happen—such as a superbug making its entry into the world. But I have also learnt that the Chinese government and people can handle whatever nature throws their way, usually dispatching the intruder to a swift demise, and in the process sparing the rest of the world worry about it.
Continue reading Of coincidences and conspiracies