I saw the images of five doctors in Italy who contracted the COVID-19 and died while working on the front lines against the disease, and it occurred to me that if your age group is the one most susceptible to the disease, you shouldn’t be there. We know that doctors and nurses are heroes, but it is foolish for a hero to die unnecessarily. The situation in Italy is very difficult at this time, and a number of retired doctors are putting away their golf clubs and heading for the hospitals.

It is claimed that Li Wenliang, the first doctor who died from COVID-19, got a super load of the virus from a patient to whom he was attending. At that time no one knew about the disease, so the doctor, an ophthalmologist, wasn’t overly concerned about his sick patient. All of us have great individual value, but the investment in producing a doctor makes the loss, especially of a young one – Wenliang was only 34 years old when he died – very tough for a country to bear.

All the evidence shows that old folks are the ones who have the most to fear from the disease. I am one who believes that old generals and leaders should be at the front line when there is a military conflict, because they are the ones who usually are inciting war, but this COVID-19 is not of our old doctors’ and nurses’ making.

Every oldster worth their salt will want to pitch in to help us through this difficult time. We know they will want to help, but there is no profit in them getting sick. I hope that when we have cases to treat here our medical leaders give the job to the young and strong, and let our old and older doctors and nurses direct the defense from da bak.

The true capitalists exposed

Wherever you are on the globe, if you want to know the real truth about yourself just check the way you behaved in the recent panic buying at the shops this month. If you’re a capitalist — it doesn’t matter if you are rich, poor, or in between— yours is a story of “me, myself, and I.” When you go to the shop or the market you don’t worry about the shelves being left emptied, your only concern is that your shopping bag is filled to the max you can afford.

There is a capitalist inside each of us who springs from the survival instinct, which is a basic feature God put in living beings when He was designing the world, so that we wouldn’t give in too easily when things got tough. Great are the stories of human beings who refused to quit, and at the end of the day, triumphed. We all share in the glory, at least sometimes, but there are times when this instinct has to be tempered. Bah, those of us with the full viciousness of the gene can’t have temperance, because with us it is an addiction.

In times like these, we really have to exercise a little control. The malaria pill story, that isn’t new. At least a month ago the Chinese were saying that it was showing some promise. Isn’t it best to allow our medical department to control the stock on hand so that the lupus patients who depend on it get their regular prescription filled, and so that our medical department can access it for people who get seriously ill?

The story out there is that 80% of us will get mildly sick or not sick at all if we come in contact with the virus. It wouldn’t be nice if healthy people have in their possession a drug that could help, while people who are sick can’t get any.

When it comes to food and other necessary stuff, the Supplies Control or some other government department could play a greater role to ensure that there is sharing of what is available. The Ministry of Local Government should also be distributing the basics to people who don’t have money to buy at the shops.

Hey, Romel Cuello, single-use plastic is alive

Some time ago, Brother Romel Cuello said he wasn’t so sure that it was a brilliant decision to put an end to most single-use plastics, an initiative that was hatched to save the environment from all the horrid plastic pollution. Discarded plastic items are not only an eyesore, they kill innocent birds and aquatic life that mistake them for food, and they disintegrate and become pervasive in the rivers, creeks, seas, and oceans.

Single-use plastic items such as disposable cups and plates, and shopping bags, were set to be phased out of existence. Hey, was the plan to end the ideal and the milky-way?

One of the big stories with single-use is that they are sanitary, and that quality is the in, real in thing at this time when we are fighting a terrible disease. It might not be a good idea to get rid of them now. Okay, there were some difficulties with the idea from the inception.

The plus side of COVID-19 (if it doesn’t wipe out all of us) – it is an ill wind that blows no good – is that the little tykes are learning that cleanliness is next to godliness, a lesson old-time tykes used to get from sash cord heat on their bottoms. It takes a deadly disease to teach basic hygiene in this crazy world that is dictated to us by the rich Europeans.

Maybe, just maybe we can seize this tide and teach the little bohgaz so that they quit their detestable littering. My aunt, Gracie Grant, told me that when she went to St. Hilda’s High School the senior students had the authority to call out any younger student who was a nasty litterer. Who knows, when the virus is gone most of the need to end single-use plastic could be gone too.

Please leave our crutch alone

Ahem, no one can blame our religious folk if they try to make a link between the recent wholesale closet breakout and this new coronavirus that is threatening the world. Ahem, I know religion can do most anything, but for a task like this we, I mean they, could use some scientific explanation to tie the package. If only the first case had been in San Francisco, not Wuhan.

I have to feel for religion, because they were taking a pounding. My, just a couple months ago the philistines were on the verge of smashing through an opportunities bill they sponsored that would have secured an alliance with other groups of Belizeans — by mid-year the good people would have been driven back into the ropes and by Krismos the cry would have been, “Uncle; wi giv up; let them have the house, we’ll go hide in the closet.”

The possibilities are there, everything is possible under the sun, but one thing the religious folk can’t afford to do is scatter their advantage with this crazy attack on weed and rum. Please, not all of us can find a place in religion, and those who don’t have that crutch need something substantial to hold on to, especially in dis ya crisis time. Right now it is preferable that no one be hibbing words at those of us who are dependent on chemicals in a bottle, or weed.

Some people shouldn’t be criticizing, they should be thanking their lucky stars that they don’t need chemical repair. Hmm, maybe we could give a pass to the old time religion when they try and get us to find the good fortune that they’ve found, but those who were born with natural high really have to back off. Your good fortune (remember the man and the lady who make full strength beer in their stomachs?) is equivalent to being born with good looks and so forth. You got that from God, not from your sweat — so unu kyaahn boast.