kits donated by PAHO P

8NEWS SUNDAY, MAY 31, 2020 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM Another 4000 COVID-19 test kits donated by PAHO

The Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) continues to make significant contributions during the COVID-19 crisis, as 4000 more testing kits were donated to the Public Health Ministry.

Country Representative, Dr William Adu-Krow told the media on Friday that over 10,000 kits were given to Guyana since the pandemic started. Each kit is complete, comprising a swab, transport medium, a special enzyme, probes, and primer.

He explained that these supplies were to be stored at a specific temperature before and after a sample is collected, which caused one batch to be damaged during transport. Nevertheless, it was replaced.

After a test is conducted, health officials are required to transport the sample to the National Public Health Reference Laboratory in Georgetown within 24 hours.

“It comes with a bottle that you put the swab in that you transport it in. It has to be transported in 24 hours and when it gets

PAHO Country Representative, Dr William Adu-Krow

to the lab, we have primers, probes that they use… If you have a small sample, it can be magnified so that you can actually see the virus particles. Then we have the enzymes that react to the particles,” Dr Adu-Krow outlined.

There are many factors to be considered before a person is listed as a suspected case. These include anyone with a fever and cough or difficulty breathing within the last 14 days prior to the onset of signs and symptoms; a person with recent travel history to a COVID-19 infected country; if there is community transmission during that time, or contact with a confirmed case; or exposure to a health facility where there are cases of the virus.

If a person omits or conceals any aspect of this information, it is likely that they might not be tested

while they are possibly carrying the virus. From the time the sample reaches the lab, it takes eight hours for the results to be available.

Recently, Director of Disease Control, Dr Nadia Liu reassured the populace that the standard for testing ensured that there were no anomalies in the results.

“The country has adopted the World Health Organisation’s Recommendations on testing…The test that we use at the Reference Lab has more than 95 per cent sensitivity and specificity. What that basically means is that the first two genomic fragments are specific for all SARSCOVID virus and the third fragment is only detectable for COVID-19 virus. That’s why this test is not a screening test, it’s a confirmation test,” Dr Liu has been quoted as saying.

Making…

…their own laws

In their ongoing campaign to ensure the Guyanese public gets a thorough grounding into the intricacies and minutiae of constitutional, procedural and civil law, the PNC has now decided to challenge Chairwoman Claudette’s dictum that “He who asserts must prove”. This is part of the law of evidence, and deals with who has the “burden of proof” in any matter brought before the courts. Meaning that, say, you haul me to the courts alleging that I stole your fowlcock, then the law demands that you offer proof that I did in fact purloin the said avian creature. Innocent until PROVEN guilty, and all that.

But, yesterday, a funny thing happened on the way to the ACCC, where representatives of the parties and GECOM Commissioners amble over to give their take on the day’s proceedings, or throw in a bombshell or two. PNC Commissioner Vincent Alexander decided to indulge in the latter diversion.

He announced that his party had submitted some 600 objections to GECOM on folks who’d allegedly (they, of course, insisted it was a fact!!) voted even though they were out of the country!! But hadn’t it been made clear, over the years since 1992, that such allegations had to be brought before a court in an elections petition for investigation? Hadn’t the PNC brought such a petition after the 1997 elections; which the now GECOM Chair, Claudette Singh, then sitting on the Bench, had thrown out??

Now, don’t get confused…the PNC had raised another technicality about ID cards being required to vote, even though they’d agreed to it in Parliament, and Claudette had ruled for them on that ground.

So how could GECOM now arrogate to itself a power the Constitution gave to the Courts in Article 163?? Not to worry, this is the PNC we’re dealing with!! Alexander referred to Regulation 40 of the National Registration Act (NRA) as the authority by which GECOM could ask the Commissioner of Registration (COR) to ask the Chief Immigration Officer (CIO) for the immigration records. Problem is, the NRA has only 27 sections!! We know that, back in the day, the PNC had flown its flag over the Appellate Court, so maybe they’re now flying it over Parliament Buildings so they can unilaterally create whatever laws they desire??

Even though PPP Commissioner Gunraj denied that the Elections Commission had made any such decision, your Eyewitness has no doubt that either the Chair or the CEO had in fact done so. As he’d predicted, the PNC will have its way, and to hell with the law of the land.

…common cause

Your Eyewitness continues to be amazed at the circling of the wagons in the African-Guyanese intelligentsia to protect David Granger and his PNC’s rigging. The extreme Marxist Clive Thomas had long made his loyalties known. He didn’t even utter a squeak when David Granger shuttered the 4 sugar estates, even though the COI he had chaired proposed otherwise. On the other end of the spectrum, there was the arch-capitalist Eric Philips, who was even co-opted into Thomas’s SARA to garnish the wealth that the PPP had been accused of pilfering.

In the left of centre are the Black Nationalists such as David Hinds, Lincoln Lewis and Ogunseye; and over in the middle are the professorial types such as George Danns and Havelock Brewster. Ivelaw Griffith was always there as an ole YSM type. Even “moderates” like Mark Kirton are now joined at the hip to extremists like Mark Benschop and Rickford Burke.

Imagine, all these “educated” men can actually look at people and say that Mingo didn’t commit fraud at Ashmin’s!!

There’s none so blind…

…Burnham spin

In his classic speech, “People’s power, no dictator”, Walter Rodney compared PNC riggers to the “Three Card” hustlers who boasted, “The more you watch, the less you see!”

Under Granger, they couldn’t even execute a sleight of hand!!