Transparency can only be good 

Dear Editor,

My criticism of Dr. Frank Anthony is never personal rather they are constructive with the view that Guyanese do have the best as it pertains to Covid and health on the whole. As a result, I will not sit idly by and watch my brothers and sisters have untested vaccines placed into their arms. For I do believe that regardless of our skin complexions, our lives do have equal value. Therefore, if a vaccine is not good enough for the Western world then it cannot be good enough of us. Inescapable, it is important to understand why we are in this position. PPP knew that Covid vaccination will be mandatory but rather than budgeting for them, they chose to spend billions on a dead Sugar Industry for the sole purpose of political gains.

Having said that, I do wish to commend Dr. Anthony in recognising that we lack the capacity to undertake genomic surveillance. Further, I must commend Dr. Frank Anthony in recognising the importance of transparency. It is welcoming that he clearly outlined the cohort of patients from who samples were collected. In my opinion this represents a wide cross section. The number 180, n=180 persons I cannot comment on with any degree of confidence but is surely not the outrageous 10 with no information on where the samples were taken.

Finally, now that Dr. Anthony is a mode of transparency, I do wonder if he can share with the public data as it pertains to Covaxin and Sinopharm. The good doctor apparently was the first person in the world to see data on Sinopharm therefore, I’m abundantly confident that the rest of the world would be eternally grateful for this long awaited data, to facilitate their independent analysis. Further, even as Covaxin data is still misplaced with the titanic on the sea floor they are still being injected into the arms of Guyanese. And this surely must be a difference of cultures; for in as much as the British are a diplomatic lot, I’m exceedingly certain that should Boris Johnson attempted vaccination of the British with Covaxin that has absolutely no data, they will most certainly hurled a few choice words in his direction. I guess former slaves and indentured labourers haven’t found their voices as yet.

Regards

Dr. Mark Devonish MBBS