Moonilal: Gov’t will use covid19 study ranking to gain votes

After the University of Oxford ranked TT as the country the second best prepared to relax lockdown measures, UNC MP Dr Roodal Moonilal says the government will use the data to “boast,” and for “electoral purposes.”

The study, dated April 23, analysed 149 countries’ response to covid19. The rankings were based on four of the WHO’s criteria for when a country can begin considering relaxing lockdown and social-distancing measures.

Speaking with Newsday on Wednesday afternoon, Moonilal said one of the government’s “major strategies” for 2020 is to gain third-party validation since it is an election year.

“And as part of that, what they have done is wilfully and deliberately stopped testing the population, and because the testing rate is – I think the lowest in the world, the figures would be low in terms of death from covid19, it would be low in terms of positives – so the government’s strategy is stop testing, keep positive covid19 cases down and deaths down, and they will emerge in the world as having the best response on the planet, based on the figures.”

He added that the government has still not responded to an article in a daily newspaper about people dying from respiratory illnesses and pneumonia in TT during the first quarter of the year.

Asked if he feels TT is at a place where the lockdown measures can be relaxed, he said yes, but it must be done responsibly.

“We can consider the reopening of the economic sectors but they must open in the same way they closed – slow and gradual. And start getting at least 25 per cent of the workforce back to work, but continue with all the precautions of social distancing, mask-wearing, hand hygiene. That must continue.”

He said in attempting to “flatten the curve,” the government is in fact, “stealing the grass.

“But they don’t put anything on the grass. It was a strategy to prevent testing for covid19, so the data would come out and the government will use it for electoral purposes.”