Daniel Thwaites | Channel your inner Eddie

Edward Phillip George Seaga, of blessed memory, had the reputation of sticking firmly to a decision once he had arrived at it. He was considered unbending and inflexible by some, but by others, steady and firm. Well, here is the hour for Mr Holness and his Cabinet tek a pattern offah Eddie and find and channel their inner Seagas.

Here’s the issue. We’ve been told that the Government has been “decisive” regarding this coronavirus epidemic. In some ways, yes. However, the quality of some of those decisions is shaky. And, honestly, we need an extra helping of some real decisiveness right now. Our lives, and the lives of loved ones, may depend on it.

At this point, we all should have been at home ‘fattening’ our own curves, but whether because of indiscipline, inability, or disinclination to comply, too many haven’t been doing that.

But Jamaica has to go into a serious lockdown for a minimum of three weeks. Currently, we’re chasing after the virus, and because we haven’t been testing nearly as much or as widely as we should have, we’re chasing it blind. To borrow from this past week’s WHO briefing, we’re only playing defence, and that’s no way to win.

A lockdown will cause serious economic pain, and there are very real questions about how effectively we can sustain and manage one, given the desperate living conditions of so many. However we’re going to feel the economic pain in any event, so we may as well steel ourselves and get on with it. Failure to do so is not decisiveness, but the opposite.

Key points to be examined

Let’s examine some key decision points along this path.

First off, don’t forget there was a test run for our preparedness when a suspected case of the virus turned up at the University Hospital in January. It resulted in pandemonium.

What was done to rectify that situation between January and March? There will have to be, at some point, some such audit of our response to the godsend of that fake scare. Were we at the front of the line for protective equipment and medical supplies? Or did we determine it a grand idea to retire Ruddy Spencer and run a by-election? That was decisiveness, but the wrong decision: in the face of death, we run politics.

Come to think on it, Elephant Man also gave us an early warning about the laughable fines in place for people who flout rules at the border.

So let’s talk about closing the border. On the morning of March 18, it was announced that the borders were shut. Later that day the border was reopened for a week. Seven thousand people flowed into the country during this window, with the explicit understanding that the Government would be able to track and trace them all with flight manifests, etc.

But then we learn that many have just disappeared into the bushes. We’ve been told that these people are the irresponsible ones who are putting us all in danger by their disappearing act, and surely that’s at least partially true. But what about the authorities that let them in? Where’s the execution of the plan to track them?

Apparent decisiveness. Indecisive revision. Confusion. It’s a pattern.

Speaking of which, what explains the debacle of rejecting the Jamaicans aboard the Marella Discovery 2? At this point, we’ve been told different things by the PM and his foreign affairs ministry, so who knows what to believe? But at a most basic level, what country, and worse, what kind of country, rejects its own citizens? If not here, where are they to go?

The Gleaner editorial notes that “The competing statements on the issue: the PM’s declaration last Tuesday … and the foreign ministry’s wriggling buck-passing suggest a failure to coordinate on the message, a kind of shortcoming that could be disastrous if it seeps further into policies aimed at fighting COVID-19.” But this isn’t just about aligning the public relations narrative. It’s apparent decisiveness, indecisive revision, and now, confusion.

With this one, the foreign ministry has hit a historic low. Within days we rebuff working citizens and then accept a planeload of deportees. Clearly, the Jamaican workers on the Marella Discovery 2 need to hire Donald Trump as their advocate and attorney.

So now let’s talk about testing, the sorest topic of all. For so long we were told that the Government was testing only those people showing symptoms. That’s decisive all right. But the WRONG decision.

In fact, this policy was always a species of madness because the virus is also spread by infected but asymptomatic individuals. Countries that have managed to control this virus have done massive and wide-scale testing. We were conspicuously and notoriously not doing that.

Instead, we have been able to report ‘low’ numbers and act as if everything is pretty much OK, but that’s because we don’t know what the hell is happening out there.

The testing has been so limited and pity-mi-likkle that only a real believer in fairy tales could think it’s giving us an accurate picture of the reality.

Thankfully, there’s recently been a complete change of tone and plan regarding testing, and it appears that the decisiveness in the wrong direction is being reversed. Asymptomatic known exposures will henceforth be tested, but what about all the others already sent out into the society to mill around and infect? Horrendous decision.

Why were the BPOs open?

Now to the inexplicable decision to leave those viral petri-dishes called BPOs open. God knows we’re thankful for the personnel-intensive job creation. They’re so good for us on that score precisely because they pack people side by side like sardines and give them paying work to do. But designating them ‘essential’ and leaving them to operate when a pandemic is afoot should almost attract criminal liability.

How could you be savvy enough to shut down schools, bars, go-go clubs, and churches, but leave banks and BPOs open?

And now, after the horse is through the gate, we have the PM talking about investigating for charges under the Disaster Risk Management Act, and the health minister about the “weak link”. It’s like a man leaving a massive hole in the boat then complaining that the ship is taking on water. On what basis were the BPOs left out of the lockdown?

Now we learn that this same company, Alorica, shut down its offices in Guatemala on March 20 when there were fewer cases found in that much larger country, while keeping the office in Jamaica open, which by that date had more cases.

Our slack policy permitted that. So here again we have decisiveness, but the wrong decision.

Then we learn that Alorica had been passing all the health inspection standards. Great!

It gets worse. The authorities tell us that there are over 100 employees of Alorica who cannot be located. Yet, of those already tested, a staggeringly high percentage are positive for coronavirus. Yeah, that was one very costly decision, as we’ve almost certainly poisoned the river we all have to swim in.

Finally, I’m trying to understand the rationale behind Tuesday evening’s announcement that a parish-wide curfew would descend on St Catherine parish on the following morning. The entirely predictable result was Jamaica’s single largest internal two-hour migration on Tuesday night as people poured out of St Catherine.

This is China’s ‘Wuhan decision’ writ small, where those geniuses announced the lockdown of Wuhan and allowed millions to disperse.

So back to the ‘One Don’ who I’m asking the Government to get in touch with. If you need a obeah man, memba Bobby’s uncle.

Eddie once said he would “lock down the country tighter than a sardine tin”, and Papa Eddie wouldn’t have promised it if it weren’t possible. And since the only way to the other side of this pandemic is to have a complete lockdown, here’s your chance. Go ahead. The time has come. Make Papa Eddie proud.

Daniel Thwaites is an attorney at law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com