THE EDITOR: The battle is raging in TT about who is to blame for the covid19 spike, resulting in the deaths of many citizens and the overwhelming of the health sector.

Prime Minister Dr Rowley said "the Opposition paid for/organised, night after night, thousands of people to do exactly what the virus wanted, which was to bring people together during a pandemic." Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar accused the PM of wickedness and lunacy for blaming the spread on the vigils after the kidnapping and murders of Andrea Bharatt and Ashanti Riley.

The covid19 blame game however is not just in TT. Many fingers are pointed at China because in the beginning Chinese authorities downplayed the threat, failing to communicate important information to the world health authorities and as a result of this negligence allowing millions of people to travel throughout the world and spread the virus.

The coronavirus first reared its ugly head in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, but researchers now suspect it was circulating even earlier than that.

On December 31, 2019, the government released a statement to the World Health Organization underestimating its severity by simply saying the disease was "preventable and controllable." By late January 2020, the story changed as Chinese authorities identified the illness to be a new strain of coronavirus and acknowledged that it could spread via human-to-human contact, but the authorities allowed millions of people to travel before initiating lockdowns.

Chinese scientists have come up with a new story trying to divert international attention towards India. After blaming Italy, the US and Europe for the outbreak, Chinese researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have now claimed that the deadly novel coronavirus originated in India in the summer of 2019. Their theory suggests that the virus jumped from animals to humans via contaminated water, before travelling unnoticed to Wuhan.

As the blame game continues the reality is the virus was underestimated from the beginning by many world leaders and it is now wreaking havoc in TT and taking many lives daily. We will only overcome the virus by uniting. Everyone needs to wear their masks, get vaccinated and adhere to covid19 protocols if we are to survive this onslaught.

SIMON WRIGHT

via e-mail