Those of us who are less than octogenarians have never seen an Easter as somber as this one we’re experiencing now. Many have said that the Easter season, Holy Week, had lost its reason, that we had made it into a season for partying instead of a season for reflecting on the sacred journey of Jesus the Christ, from the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday, the cleansing of the Temple on (Holy) Monday, to the Cross on Good Friday, and then the Risen Christ on Easter Sunday.

Well, there’s no dearth of prayers in Belize and the world this Easter. The new coronavirus has us on our knees, praying for it to let up so that we can live again. Is there any place on earth that is more glorious than Belize in March and April? In May the sun will burn some kind of fierce, and the winds will not blow sometimes, but in March and April the sun is seldom too hot, and the wind is almost always blowing.

March and April are animal time, for the birds and the bees and the human beings, in every corner of Belize. That might explain why we are distracted from reflecting enough on the true meaning of Easter, about all that happened during Holy Week. It is because we are so busy enjoying God’s wondrous creation, at its very best.

Easter is the best time to be near the sea, and the rivers, and the lagoons. It is a time for us to fish, and sail, and paddle our dory, and swim, and barbecue meat, and drink, a little. Easter time is Cross Country time, on Holy Saturday. On Holy Saturday all sports give way to cycling, the annual journey across the belly of the country, the round trip from Belize City to San Ignacio and back to Belize City.

Bah, this year there is no race on Holy Saturday, and there’ll be no reveling in the many spots where Belizeans and their friends from abroad usually meet up to have fun. We’re under a state of emergency because of the COVID-19 virus, and everyone is being asked to stay at home.

This Easter is somber, not full of frolic like bifo times, but all is not lost. The times are lean, but a few of the traditions of the Easter time will still be kept up in most homes in our land. There’ll be hot cross buns, and everyone will try to get a piece of fish to eat on Good Friday. Some will “see” services online on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and those of us who don’t usually go to church will read our passages. And there’ll still be wind, and sun, and moonlight, so we can have some joy in our lives.

Voluntary disclosure is heroic

There is an ongoing argument for, and an argument against, revealing the names of persons who have the misfortune of getting sick with coronavirus. Me, I think it would be heroic, in the service of the common good, if any of us who contracts the disease asks the authorities to reveal it.

Really, there is nothing private about a communicable disease. A communicable disease isn’t private, because if we are within “sneeze” distance of another person, we have the capacity to affect their health. The authorities can hold off if they think they can gain control of the disease while protecting the privacy of individuals, but they can only go so far. If I had the virus (I haven’t taken a test, so I am an unknown), I wouldn’t WANT to announce it, but for sure I would tell all the people around me. I would also want to tell all the persons whom I met in passing, so that they know that they were near the virus.

You won’t catch HIV/AIDS by being near to someone who has the disease; they learned that after studying the disease. It doesn’t look like you can catch the new coronavirus just by being near to someone who has it, but if you touch something they touched you might come in contact with the virus, or if you breathe in the air they exhaled you might come in contact with the virus.

Is there a person who would not admit that the “mapping” would be easier and quicker if the identity of a person who had contracted the disease were known? We should have up our guard at all times, because the person with the disease might not be exhibiting any signs of having it, but clearly our defense (to protect others) would be tightened if we knew we had come in contact with a person who had the disease.

The person who catches COVID-19 will not spend the rest of his or her life carrying and spreading it. In 14 days or so the person most likely will be certified free of the disease, which would then put them more in the clear than persons who haven’t been tested.

There are lessons to be learned from the Americans. We persist in protecting young people who we believe have committed heinous crimes. Let it be known that Belize will no longer support the protective cover for anyone, from grampa to grandchild, who commits a violent crime. I will not comment on it, but it is said that hardened criminals use young people to do dirty work, knowing that the state will handle them with kid gloves.

I am an intensely private person, to the extreme, so it is not native to me to want the identities of persons who have contracted the virus to be told. In fact, it could backfire: people could decide to forego testing to protect their privacy.

However, if we don’t get control of the situation soon, the authorities might have to become more aggressive, and that would include a decision to stop withholding names. Me, for the greater good I encourage those of us who get sick with the virus to voluntarily divulge. The nation will bless us for that, and our leaders should protect us from people who are not smart enough to appreciate the value of such a disclosure.

My evitar e-coli hygiene not up to par

If this COVID-19 disease was Ebola or SARS or MERS, I believe I would be following the guidelines better than I am right now, but I still wouldn’t be perfect. My only chance for survival against those diseases would be to find a mangrove patch like Chef Kuylen and head out with a few bottles and some fish (mosquito coils) and a hammock.

The more you live, the more craziness you’re exposed to. This character that made a list of a dozen or so things that are filthier than a toilet seat, he is flat-out sick in the head. Hmm, if they told this character his dinner would be served on a toilet seat cover, he wouldn’t say no —he’d say what part of the chicken he preferred.

Toilet, toilet seat, toilet cover, even if it’s in a show winda, I get leery around it. My hygiene, before the new coronavirus, was good enough to defend against what you touch around there.

This new coronavirus is impossible, nearly. You go to a store to pick up a can of something, and what happens if someone with contaminated hands just touched it? No one knows what amount of virus it takes to make you sick, no one knows for sure how the virus will behave with their constitution, so no one can boast. I have heard that we guys are a pushover, but those girls have good resistance. Bully for them. They should thank their lucky stars.

This present situation is the perfect case of “do your best and leave the rest to God,” because we noh good enough. You can lock yourself in a room, but at some point you still have to come out to get some food. Ah, if we all lock down it will be a lot safer when we come out to look for our fry chikin, so maybe we should become like Wuhan. I heard they locked down everybody and brought them food served on a stick and in two or three weeks things began to clear.