Dear Editor,
This pandemic is causing foolish loss of valuable lives among our people. This invisible monster can be controlled by wearing proper masks. It enters through the breathing apparatus and exits the same way to be spread.
This thing does not have to be causing so much suffering, if only everyone would adhere to the protocols. Wash your hands, wear properly a mask, and keep your distance. Treat everyone as if they are infected.
Most sensible people adhere to these, but when they go home, they let loose and forget everything.
It is primarily people who like to socialize who are causing these problems. Alcohol makes you forget everything, and masks are disposed of when the feeling is good, and one infected person will infect at least ten at a party.
They then go home, not knowing they are infected, and spread it to the entire household, where the vulnerable suffer.
Here in beautiful Orange Walk, the epicenter of the pandemic, I notice that it is happening a lot at construction sites. It is hard to do construction work with a mask on. Sometimes I would see a crew of about ten mask-less workers with no social distance between them.
Most of them like to drink, and hence, are infected without knowing it. Of those ten, four will get really sick, but when they take it home to their elders, someone will die.
I know four of our outstanding citizens who should still be alive, but are now dead through no fault of their own — Mrs. Martinez from San Estevan, “Bogart” Rosado, Carlos Peralta and Thomas Garcia from Orange Walk Town.
At our farm, one drink culprit infected about five more, and we were lucky to have no one die.
This thing is getting so bad that I would recommend the protocols even when at home. Trust no one, not even your children or kin.
If GOB is serious, they have to implement “no alcohol sales” — “ley seca”, for a while, plus make the police get stiff on the mask wearing. Methinks a “hundred-dollar ticket” would be much better than taking them to jail, unless they absolutely refuse to put it on.
We have to stop this thing in its tracks, and GOB must take a stand. We started bright, but have now fallen hard.
Some people might not like the idea, but too many valuable lives are being unnecessarily lost.
Please, GOB, start with the Orange Walk District and see the big difference, only for a while, till people get the sense.
If we are sure that everybody follows the protocols, we could even open our land borders.
Regards,
Romel Cuello