Tag Archives: Covid-19

Show me your leader

By Raffique Shah
August 29, 2022

Raffique ShahIt’s not so much that we have little or nothing to celebrate on the 60th anniversary of our Independence from Britain, as so many who swear they are patriots, but whose patriotism swings with the pendulum of their political party’s fortunes, which almost always are linked to their personal fortunes.

It’s more that our democracy has been carved up into near-equal but uneven parts in such manner, to misquote Irish poet William Yeats in his near-prophetic masterpiece, “The Second Coming”, “…Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world/The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned/The best lack all conviction/While the worst/Are full of passionate intensity…”
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Did Covid-19 Vaccines Cause Coronavirus Delta Variants?

Here’s What The Timing Says

By Bruce Y. Lee
August 07, 2021 – forbes.com

Covid-19As they say in life, timing is everything. There are now claims that Covid-19 vaccines have caused the Delta variant of the Covid-19 coronavirus to emerge. For example, here’s something that was posted on Facebook:

There is however one big flaw in such claims. It has to do with the space-time continuum and the lack of a flux capacitor.
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Too little poetic justice

By Raffique Shah
May 10, 2021

Raffique ShahThere are times when I feel ashamed of being Trinidadian. On such occasions, I feel almost like a traitor, having to admit that some of my countrymen are bringing shame and disgrace to our otherwise proud nation.

As the Covid-19 numbers exploded last week from single-digit in­creases to 300-plus daily confirmed cases, hospital beds were occupied at dizzying rates while deaths rose from modest to uncomfortable levels, I felt personally defeated.
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The COVID-19 Catastrophe in India Keeps Growing

By Vijay Prashad
April 26, 2021 – counterpunch.org

COVID-19 in IndiaIt is difficult to overstate the grip of COVID-19 on India. WhatsApp bristles with messages about this or that friend and family member with the virus, while there are angry posts about how the central government has utterly failed its citizenry. This hospital is running out of beds and that hospital has no more oxygen, while there is evasion from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Cabinet.
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Out with the old, in with the new

By Raffique Shah
April 19, 2021

Raffique ShahThere comes a time in the affairs of a nation—and such occurrences are rare, maybe once in a century—when events shaped by the actions of citizens or unleashed by the forces of nature create the conditions for change, sometimes radical change that otherwise would hardly be considered, far less adopted, but which, when measured by the degree of dislocation the nation faces if its leaders fail to act, may offer opportunities that guide us along a path we didn’t think existed.
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Opening the borders

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 13, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI left Trinidad and Tobago on March 16, 2020, a few days before the borders were closed to citizens and visitors alike. I was on the verge of departing for a ten-day visit to India, at the invitation of the Indian government as a part of its Academic Visitors Programme for distinguished scholars.
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Pass the teacup

By Raffique Shah
April 12, 2021

Raffique ShahThere must be an ultra-secret super-Lotto somewhere in the universe, where only the super-wealthy and governments-by-vaps play for super-stakes—you know, jackpots paid in gazillions, in currencies-of-choice, and in cash, s’il vous plait. Really, there must be. Why else would Finance Minister Colm Imbert and Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley strut around a country that looks like an abandoned steam locomotive whose era has gone, they looking cooler than the proverbial cucumber, seemingly without care or worry, while lesser mortals like your humble scribe worry to no end over the near-evaporation of foreign exchange, the unavailability of any good or service that we can sell in large enough volumes that will yield the billions of US dollars we require for our sustenance?
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PM Rowley tests positive for COVID-19

PM Rowley tests positive for COVID-19
The diagnosis comes mere hours before the PM was set to receive his first COVID-19 vaccine dose.

Prime Minister tests positive for covid-19
Rowley is in isolation and under medical supervision.

CMO: PM will have to wait six months
Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Roshan Parasram this morning said that according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendations, anyone who has tested positive for COVID-19 must wait six months before getting the vaccine.
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Now’s not the time to misbehave

By Raffique Shah
April 05, 2021

Raffique ShahI suppose it had to come to this—an explosion of Covid-19 cases just when we thought we could see a ray of sunshine at the end of a year-long dark tunnel we’ve cautiously navigated, when the first tranche of vaccines had arrived, launching Trinidad and Tobago into the immunisation phase of the war against this deadly virus.

It’s not as if the surge in confirmed cases ambushed us. We were warned by the medical team that has thus far efficiently conducted the war against Covid-19, that should we continue to breach the simple safety practices that have worked for us, hence expose ourselves to regression, we would encounter a nasty backlash. But there are some among us who are plain “harden”, who must misbehave to look macho.
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Don’t Let God Stueps on Us

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 31, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThe UK and the EU have populations of 68 million and 746 million people respectively. On Tuesday the UK tried to make up with the EU over its misunderstanding about the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines. Boris Johnson, UK’s prime minister, sent Lord Eddie Lister, to Brussels, the headquarters of the EU, “as part of an effort to secure millions of doses of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine vital to UK’s fight against coronavirus” (FT, March 23).
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