The average Jamaican response to the novel coronavirus pandemic has been very much like that of tracking a storm while hoping it will go away. Our health minister and his front-line teams have been tackling the real issues while we play hide and seek with curfews and restricted movements like school children ramping during recess.

In my time at elementary school ramping would come to a sudden stop when we spied the school dentist or the nurse heading our way. We wanted to run, but there was no place to hide. The dentist wasted no time as he laid out his working tools in full view of a bunch of terrified children. First of all, a large enamel basin, then what looked like a pliers, followed by a framework that looked suspiciously like a gallows with a foot pedal that he pumped vigorously to generate the energy for the extraction tug-of-war. This was long before the invention of the electric drill as we know it today.

On the other hand the nurse wore a kindly smile as she made her way to the teacher’s table, but we eyed her warily. We knew that the innocent-looking bag she carried concealed “the needle”.

We dreaded those visits, but nevertheless our fears were soon put to rest as those who lost the tooth battle went home with a bandage around the cheek worn boastfully for the next few days as a badge of honour, like veterans returning home from World War II.

The other medals which we still wear proudly today are the vaccination marks on the arm which testify to the successful elimination of polio and typhoid and other pandemics during the course of our lives.

So what’s all this with the anti-vaccine, and the misbehaviour, and the fake news being raised over the COVID-19 vaccines? Are big men and women so afraid of a tiny needle that they come up with all sorts of excuses like the schoolchildren of old in order to avoid taking the jab?

Well, enter the Delta variant and all of a sudden the ramping is over. On Wednesday of this week, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Jacqueline Bisasor-McKenzie told a stunned nation that the feared variant had arrived. The school bell rang immediately and the head teacher summoned the students back into class.

Worse, the CMO said it was clear that the highly contagious variant had spread across the country and that hospitalisations are rapidly increasing. This was chilling news.

The good doctor did not have to add that obviously Jamaicans must now play closer attention to the immediate need to get vaccinated, as that is the only option left beyond the mask, the sanitisation, and the social distancing.

The prime minister went much further when he addressed the nation on Thursday evening. In one of the best presentations I have seen him deliver, he announced seven no-movement days ordered over the next two weeks.

The situation is grim. What is happening to us is that, with our hanky-panky behaviour, we have worked our way up to a staggering near-6,500 new cases during the first 19 days of August.

And the death toll is frightening. More people are dying from COVID-19 than are being killed by gunmen.

If you thought that as a child that the dentist’s visit was scary, these COVID-19 numbers we are facing should make you want to run and hide. Yet, in spite of the facts, and the near desperate situation we have found ourselves in, the anti-vaccine campaign is still red hot.

Incredibly, some are even blaming the vaccine for the increase in the number of deaths reported each night. When I hear that kind of argument I have to bite my tongue. Argument done for me at that point, and I say a silent prayer for the indefatigable national, parish, and regional health staffers who are carrying the fight. They not only have to do battle with the pandemic, but must also take the fight to their own fellow Jamaicans who are fighting down the vaccine. Double jeopardy indeed!

And what a fight it is turning out to be. This COVID-19 man is not an easy enemy to deal with.

Show of leadership

Uganda’s President Kaguta Museveni’s reported statement to his people regarding his country’s war on COVID-19 is unambiguous in its characterisation of the destructive disease, referring to it as “a harvest of death”.

“The enemy in this war is without mercy. It is without any milk of human kindness. It is indiscriminate — it has no respect for children, women, or places of worship. This army is not interested in spoils of war. It is an invisible, fleet-footed, and ruthlessly effective army.

“Its only agenda is a harvest of death. It is only satiated after turning the world into one big death field. Its capacity to achieve its aim is not in doubt. Its movement is not governed by any war convention or protocol. In short, it is a law unto itself. It is coronavirus.”

“But, thankfully,” he points out, “this army has a weakness and it can be defeated. It only requires our collective action, discipline, and forbearance. COVID-19 cannot survive social and physical distancing. It capitulates in the face of collective social and physical distancing. It bows before good personal hygiene. It is helpless when you take your destiny in your own hands by keeping them sanitised as often as possible.”

Concerted efforts

In earlier columns we had suggested that the Government should consider declaring an Anti-COVID-19 Month, or some such sustained period to consolidate all strategies and steps being taken to fight the virus, and to get the nation united behind the drive.

An Anti-COVID-19 Month calls for a deliberate, emphatic, persistent, and concentrated mass effort to get every single Jamaican to understand the importance of adapting to the preventive methods for fighting the virus, hammer home the consequences for non-conformity, and demonstrate the seriousness of our intention to save lives.

As Thursday’s editorial in this newspaper said, “It seems that all of us with a sense of responsibility and a care for those around us should be doing our part to ease vaccine hesitancy.”

Our medical services, hospitals, clinics, mobile units, and our thousands of courageous and dedicated medical workers are being strained to the limit and beyond. We owe it to them to give our full support and cooperation. We can do this in little ways, and in big ways.

Today, I saw a vendor selling masks at $50 per item. I bought 50 to hand out to anyone I see maskless for whatever reason. Simple things count. We must enlist in the army, and we must pray for our front-liners without ceasing.

So often we can go to the Bible for references to situations in which God has come to the rescue of His people. Today we are being led to find comfort in the powerful Psalm 91, in which He assures us that, if we come to Him for safety, He will protect and defend us.

We must pray that our people in the trenches will never give up, but that guided by wisdom from on high they will continue to take actions they believe are in the best interest of Jamaicans at this time.

So, this is the moment. The prime minister on Thursday night declared war on COVID-19. The campaign has been launched to persuade Jamaicans to sign up for a national vaccination programme. It took a serious wake-up call from the third wave spike for the Government to take the fight into the heart of our communities by opening up vaccination sites in hitherto unreachable places.

I got my vaccinations early as a senior, and among the first weekend blitz at the Bahia Hotel in Runaway Bay. As I awaited my turn for the jab, I couldn’t help but notice that the car park was full with private vehicles, but no mini buses or taxis.

It worried me that, perhaps, we were missing the bus as obviously the outreach to the bulk of the population from the hinterlands — plenty of hinterland in my neck of the woods — had been either ignored or felt that the vaccine was a big shot deal.

In conversations later with my Thursday chat club we thought that the same energy and creativity used by our politicians to get out voters to the polls should have been employed to get out residents to the vaccine centres. We hope that this is one of the strategies now being used to get the inner cities and inner ‘hinterlanders’, the handicapped, the grandparents, the impoverished, the reluctant ones, to a vaccine centre near to you.

It is not going to be an easy task. Those of us who are worried and concerned must not panic. God has given us the gift of wisdom and understanding — the most powerful tools to overcome this enemy. Pray to God Almighty to free us from this vice grip and release us from this devil disease — social distance, wash hands, mask up, and prayer.

Only one thing, prayer should not have been our last resort; it should have been our first.

Lance Neita is a public relations consultant and an author. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or lanceneita@hotmail.com.