Dear Editor,

Viruses are older than human existence. In 1918, we had the Spanish flu, which infected 500 million and killed 20 million to 50 million people.

We had the SARS outbreak of 2002 to 2004. It infected 8,098 and killed 774 people from China, other Asian countries, the UK (4) and Toronto, Canada.

In 2014, the Ebola outbreak killed 11,315 persons in 5 African countries and the US.

So, why wasn’t the world prepared for COVID-19?

For Caribbean countries, it’s like a hurricane. Its time of impact is uncertain, but unpreparedness means death.

All countries — capitalist, socialist and communist — are unprepared. The US had more cases of COVID-19 than China, which has a population that is about 4 times that of the US.
The worst prepared country in the world is the United States, because its health care system is profit-driven and the most expensive in the world. It is the only advanced nation that has such a system; Europe, the UK, Russia, China, Canada and Japan all have a healthcare system that’s government-driven.

I think that the shutting down of the economy will not stop the spread of the pandemic. A lot of people are poor and cannot self-isolate. They must hustle for food, or they will die.

We need to test everyone and then quarantine the infected.  Everyone should wear a mask to work, and practice proper hygiene. Take in a lot of vitamin C from oranges, etc. Let’s be sensible.

Every mouth must be fed. This current method will lead to social upheaval such as what started to occur in Italy, or worse.

Yours truly,
Brian E. Plummer