Some years ago when teaching my eldest daughter to drive, I recall telling her to never drive in the middle of the road as I explained to her the accompanying dangers of doing so.

Decades later, I find myself needing to tell our prime minister ‎the same bit of advice as he travels on the same path with equally disastrous consequences.

These comments are made having heard his press conference a few ‎days ago when he claims to be keeping the economy open while keeping a balance between addressing the health and economic issues. 

If the PM feels that the economy is “open”, he is fooling himself but certainly not others especially those in the business sector who are being forced to lay off staff or demand pay cuts. Ask any of these businessmen or women – aside from supermarkets and those selling medical supplies – and ‎hear if they tell you the economy is “open”.

I posit to the PM that the Jamaican economy is currently like a ‘bruk’ foot athlete limping or crawling from Morant Bay to Blue Mountain Peak, and in reality, going nowhere fast, all while telling others proudly of his ongoing journey to nothingness.

Using that analogy, the athlete would be best advised to get his broken foot set and healed after which he can begin a jog up the hill and reach far sooner and be in far better health‎ having reached.

If in fact the incubation period of the COVID-19 virus is 14 days then the method of fixing the “broken ‎foot”, and the time period to do so, is a total lockdown of the country for just over two weeks. Having done so, the virus would be dead in our homes and community spread would no longer be a fear allowing us to get back – at full speed- to business as usual at least until the decision to reopen our borders is inevitably considered. Persons infected at the beginning of the lockdown would have either sought medical attention or recovered and no longer pose a risk to others. At best, after the lock down we could have another 14 days of safe social distancing and then all discard our masks and hug in celebration. 

I call on the PM to be swift and decisive in his leadership at this time and to stop playing politics or optics worrying about how he looks with his social media team in tow.

Lock down the country knowing that it is the right and responsible thing to do to save lives and simultaneously save the economy. Tough as it may be, businesses may be able to survive being locked down for two weeks if the result is their reopening with a sense of calm and normality thereafter but they clearly cannot survive with the current state of affairs due to the PM ‘s wishy washy middle of the road driving.

While there are serious challenges to keeping people inside their homes for 14 days with adequate food and water supplies, plans can be implemented to ‎mitigate such circumstances. Instead of asking corporate Jamaica to buy equipment, ask them to stockpile and donate food for the inner city communities to allow them to live through an inevitable and necessary 14-day shutdown, which will in effect allow the PM to move his car back into his lane with a resounding victory over this dreaded and destructive pandemic.

As always

Leroy D

Vía email

Leroy.dixon651@gmail.com