Opinion - Cause for concern… |08 February 2021

Two hundred and twenty-seven (227) new cases of Covid-19 in just three days ‒ 147 on Friday, 71 on Saturday and nine on Sunday. This is the reality in Seychelles right now. And this is cause for concern as the virus is spreading too fast in our country.

Have we, the government and the whole population, been taking things too lightly?

Remember our health is our responsibility. As citizens, we all have a responsibility to follow the guidelines given by the Ministry of Health. If not, more restrictions are needed.

Like most governments around the world, the Seychelles government has been walking a very fine line as it attempts to balance the people’s health benefits with the potential economic costs of the pandemic, as well as balance the population’s personal freedom with public restrictions. As a result, each one of us has to make more sacrifices to protect everyone across the board.

On the other hand, the question remains where do all these Covid-19 positive cases come from?

The answer could come from those who have tested positive but only if they can remember who they were in contact with and where.

Also, one can ask: what is the method of testing? What is the speed of testing? Are the technicians overwhelmed with the load of work?

The minute we decide to choose to confine ourselves to our homes as much as possible, we will each be playing our part in reducing both the number of infections and deaths from Covid-19 which has reached six in our country.

This way we will relieve a lot of pressure on the laboratory technicians, nurses, doctors and all health professionals as well as volunteers.

We’ve read that in many parts of the world because of the number of infected persons in relation to available equipment such as ventilators, doctors have had to choose who to save. So, do we want doctors in Seychelles to go as far as deciding who lives and who dies?

I don’t think so, but if we decide not to heed the advice given by the health authorities, it is very likely that the number of cases will keep increasing and doctors will have to face the terrible choice of prioritising patients with the greatest life expectancy.

On Wednesday will be exactly one month since Seychelles rolled out the Covid-19 vaccination programme and so far, the 25,000 people who have received the first dose of the Sinopharm vaccine are taking their second jab, while the elderly and some special groups have been receiving the Covishield vaccine. In fact, vaccine is the best hope for Seychelles and the world, but we have to remain smart in every decision we take ‒ like wearing masks, washing our hands, keeping physical distance and others.

Seychelles NATION has since two weeks been requesting statistics of the number of jabs daily to be printed the following day, but until today the media has been receiving the statistics a day late, meaning for newspapers we get to publish it two days late. For example, statistics for Monday are released on Tuesday and come out in the newspaper on Wednesday. One of the reasons for the delay we were told is the statisticians have to verify the statistics each night before they are released the next. But to our surprise one media house read out the statistics for Saturday on Saturday night. The reason I have decided to write is because we at Seychelles NATION only received the statistics for Saturday from the health authorities at 5.22pm yesterday.

Still on the issue of information sharing, President Wavel Ramkalawan has stressed on the need for government officials including ministers to answer questions posed by journalists.

Why do some ministers choose not to return our phone calls, don’t answer our text messages and more so just read our Whatsapp messages without acknowledging?

The same goes for the police.

Remember, the people are thirsty for information and the Seychelles NATION newspaper depends on reliable sources to get the right information about events to share with its readers.

We are here to serve you (government officials and others) to serve the people.

Don’t let the people down and then look for excuses.

Gerard Govinden