Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP, is re­it­er­at­ing her call for Gov­ern­ment to es­tab­lish “a COVID-19 In­tel­li­gence Unit where all Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Health agen­cies will com­mu­ni­cate and ex­e­cute strate­gic plans and op­er­a­tions in uni­son and in re­al time”.

Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is mak­ing the ap­peal once more, fol­low­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s press con­fer­ence on Sat­ur­day 12 Sep­tem­ber 2020, dur­ing which he an­nounced an­oth­er 28 days of re­stric­tions to help curb the com­mu­ni­ty spread of COVID-19, which the coun­try is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing at present.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment, the Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so ex­press­es con­cern over what she says is Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to come up with a new and work­able plan to deal with the dis­ease prop­er­ly, which has claimed some 50 lives, since it first ap­peared, ear­li­er this year.

The full text of the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s state­ment, fol­lows…

KAM­LA: GOV­ERN­MENT HAS NO NEW PLANS TO DEAL WITH RIS­ING COVID-19 CAS­ES

The de­f­i­n­i­tion of in­san­i­ty is do­ing the same things over and over and ex­pect­ing a dif­fer­ent re­sult each time. As the num­ber of COVID-19 cas­es ex­plodes with ris­ing deaths, the Row­ley regime is sim­ply re­peat­ing the same tired pro­pa­gan­da lines over and over. 

This, ac­cord­ing to Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC, MP, who is­sued the fol­low­ing state­ment:

It is now de­press­ing­ly clear to all cit­i­zens that the Gov­ern­ment has no clear and fo­cused plan to ad­e­quate­ly deal with the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

As the Prime Min­is­ter ad­dressed the na­tion to­day [Sat­ur­day 12th], he said, “We could take some com­fort that our sit­u­a­tion has not wors­ened.” This, in spite of the fact that in the last month, we’ve seen an in­crease from 153 cas­es and 8 deaths to 2,076 cas­es and 50 deaths.

Row­ley has once again of­fered no new plans to curb the ris­ing rate of in­fec­tion.  To­day [Sat­ur­day 12th], at the end of his Gov­ern­ment's 28-day cy­cle of lock­down mea­sures, he an­nounced yet an­oth­er 28-day cy­cle of the same mea­sures that have al­ready presided over ex­po­nen­tial growth in COVID-19 cas­es.

The Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to blame every­one else but their failed re­sponse to this pan­dem­ic.

The Op­po­si­tion is pleased that the Gov­ern­ment ac­cept­ed our sug­ges­tion to pur­chase over 100,000 rapid test­ing kits, how­ev­er, when asked to­day [Sat­ur­day 12th] on their avail­abil­i­ty for use, Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh said he had to wait “for the man­u­fac­tur­er.”

Cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to com­plain about the lengthy time tak­en to re­ceive their test re­sults which again lim­its our ca­pac­i­ty to ob­tain true da­ta and con­trol the virus spread.

The UNC re­sub­mits the fol­low­ing sug­ges­tions for the im­me­di­ate steps that can be tak­en that are sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly proven to slow the spread of the virus:

1. The es­tab­lish­ment of a COVID-19 In­tel­li­gence Unit where all Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Health agen­cies will com­mu­ni­cate and ex­e­cute strate­gic plans and op­er­a­tions in uni­son and in re­al time.

2. De­ploy teams of Health Of­fi­cers to en­sure COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions’ com­pli­ance by busi­ness­es and the pub­lic.

3. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, in­crease stocks of PPE for our front­line work­ers, and in­crease the num­ber of beds avail­able for pa­tients suf­fer­ing from more se­ri­ous symp­toms.

The Gov­ern­ment must act de­ci­sive­ly and not with an “It’s bad all around the world” men­tal­i­ty.

The Op­po­si­tion con­tin­ues to urge cit­i­zens to fol­low the pub­lic health guide­lines and take the nec­es­sary mea­sures to pro­tect them­selves and their fam­i­lies.