Trinidad and Tobago’s decision to begin a phased re-opening of parts of the country’s business sector following a period of ‘lockdown’ and outcomes which appear to suggest that significantly restricting the movement of people for a period may have impacted positively on the country’s status insofar as contracting of the Coronavirus and better still, fatalities deriving therefrom, should be noted in Guyana.

Trinidad and Tobago’s decision, as far as we can tell, derived from more than just official worry over the contraction of business and the multi-faceted implications that this would have been having for jobs, the welfare of families and for the country’s economy as a whole that would have ensured even as the swathes of the country’s economy remained closed.

Indeed, the available evidence would appear to suggest that at an earlier stage Trinidad and Tobago took what would have been the tough decision to impose a lockdown across the country that may not have been universally popular and, moreover, would have resulted in a considerable degree of immediate-term hardship, but which would have been influenced by the view that there was the need to ‘force the issue’ in order to ensure the effective implementation of the procedures associated with social distancing.

What, regrettably, was also pretty clear from the outset was that in a country, Guyana, where, whatever the circumstances, sections of the population are inclined to push back against constraints to what they sometimes misguidedly refer to as their ‘freedoms,’ social distancing has not been not universally popular, to say the least.

Whereas one might imagine that the reality of the potential of COVID-19 to take lives might add a dimension of ‘good sense’ to the national response here in Guyana, we can say without fear of contradiction that even as this editorial is being read, pockets of Guyanese in parts of the country (perhaps labouring under the impression that COVID-19 has afforded us the day off to celebrate the anniversary of the country’s independence) are nonchalantly ‘living it up’.

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