By Nathan ‘Jolly’ Green, February 2020

Most
Countries in the World will do anything to protect their citizens and
visitors from the Coronavirus. But not in Saint Vincent, the
Caribbean mainland island of St.Vincent and the Grenadines. There
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has taken an unprecedented risk of
exposing his citizens and tourists to an illness that may well kill
them.

A cruise
ship named ‘Adria Perla’, who has among its crew Chinese and
Filipino nationals, both from places where the Corona Virus is
killing people, docked in Kingstown, Saint Vincent.

Gonsalves
gave the final permission for the ship to allow its passengers to go
ashore, even though 137 people, including crew, had been affected by
a presently unknown respiratory, pulmonary virus. Twenty-three of
those, apparently mainly crew, have been quarantined on board ship.

The ship
was refused landing rights in Saint Lucia and also Dominica, but SVG
welcomed them. As two thousand passengers came ashore, not a single
handheld thermometer was in site, no health checks on disembarkation.
There are no health checks at the airport, no sign of handheld
thermometers there either. But there is a good reason for that, they
do not have such advanced equipment, yet we the people have been
assured that SVG is ready for such a crisis as Corona Virus, we are
not.

But on
Sunday, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves defended his decision to allow
the vessel to dock two days earlier, saying, "we have to act
sensibly with the protocols and don't panic."

Gonsalves
said that onboard the cruise ship "there were 23, I think 23
persons, who had some kind of virus.

"But
they were isolated on the ship. They were crew members and some
passengers," he said on WE FM radio.

The
frightening thing is Senator Luke Brown Minister, the Health
Minister, who knows zilch about anything medical is in charge of the
situation. Now tell us, is that supposed to instill confidence in us?
It most certainly has the opposite effect for most of us.

Some
countries have been panicking," Gonsalves said.

But
anyone with half a brain would not describe it as panic. It is sheer
common sense to take proper precautions to protect the people of SVG
when there is an unknown virus onboard a cruise ship. This may well
prove to be the Corona Virus, or it may not be, but it may even be
something worse than Corona. We quite simply do not know, so best to
err on the side of sensibility and caution, and take all precautions,
and more.

Gonsalves
went on to say, "Look, there are protocols which have been laid
down through WHO (World Health Organisation), PAHO (Pan-American
Health Organisation), CARPHA (Caribbean Public Health Agency) and
which we apply," he said.

Is he
following the protocols? I for one simply do not trust the word of
Gonsalves and certainly do not believe or support anything which is
under the control of Luke Brown.

"It's
not every incident that you just assume that it is the coronavirus,"
the prime minister said.

But
common sense tells us anything that is un-recognized, un-identified,
and is passed from human to human must be treated as being dangerous,
and all precautions are taken until it is proved harmless to the
general population and our few tourists.

The
prime minister said that Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Simone
Keizer-Beache, had explained to him that when the cruise ship came,
there were about 135 persons who had on the cruise "reported
some kind of a discomfort." Well, that is a wishy-washy
explanation that only makes many among us even less trusting of the
handling of this matter.

The
discomfort Dr. Gonsalves, was they had difficulty breathing, and some
remaining in quarantine have developed pneumonia-like chest
infections.

Gonsalves
then said, "If you see it is 135 active problems, then that's a
different number than 23, but you have to go through the detail to
see whether there is something active and whether somebody suffered
or is suffering and none of them was connected to the coronavirus."

That is
the point comrade, we and especially you, have no idea what the
infection is, it may be a new virus many times worse than Corona.

In
Italy, the cruise ship Costa Smeralda ship - carrying 7,000 people,
including some Britons - had been kept on the ship after a
54-year-old Chinese woman from Macau came down with flu-like
symptoms. Italy's health ministry has now confirmed that two Chinese
cruise ship passengers tested negative for the virus that has killed
170 people so far in the city of Wuhan.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7947003/6-000-trapped-cruise-ship-Italy-two-people-board-tested-coronavirus.html

In May
2019, the cruise ship owned by the Church of Scientology was
quarantined in Saint Lucia because of a single measles case, health
authorities on the Caribbean island made sure no one left the ship.

https://news.yahoo.com/scientology-cruise-ship-quarantined-caribbean-measles-case-212150101.html

You see
the difference, the Italians tested for the virus and never let
anyone off the ship until after it had been quarantined for several
days, and it was proved that the coronavirus was not on board.

The
Saint Lucians did the same no one on, no one off until the measles
case was given the all clear.

Left
Luke Brown, Minister of Health

Right
Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister

If
Gonsalves acted on the advice of Luke Brown, who he has let handle
the problem and advise on it, that could have signed the death
warrant for hundreds if not thousands of Vincentians and tourists.
This is nothing like the actions that anyone would expect from a real
statesman.

If
Gonsalves were in America, he would have been impeached for his
handling of this matter alone, a very foolish act on his part, in
fact really stupid, if not downright criminal.

For the readers further information, there is currently a new outbreak of the H5N1 virus known as "Bird Flu" just ten miles from where the first cases of the coronavirus outbreak occurred in China. The Chinese are slaughtering chickens as they did in that last outbreak, which killed hundreds of people worldwide.

END – IMAGES supplied by author

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