The Virus and the Cure

 

I do not want to hammer away at this, but it is a truism that if you protest racism you are going to upset some racists.

Recently, an Anguillian radio host took a turn on his radio station against a citizen who dared to express his opinion of Covid-19 vaccination refusers.  The citizen criticised persons who refuse vaccination, claiming they will hinder the reopening of the island’s tourism-based economy.  The citizen in question is White, and the radio host is Black.

He urged government that, “When everyone who wants vaccination gets it, probably in May, we need to open.  Do away with the 14-day quarantine.  It is not realistic to expect tourists to endure that.  People who choose not to get vaccinated should stay home and hide out.  They should not have the option of hospital treatment, they should not get to work in tourism, travel, public service, or any forward-facing job.  I do not want to be held hostage by people who choose to hide from covid.  …  there has to be an exit strategy, or we will collapse economically.  Government needs to view the requirement for vaccination as a Health and Safety issue, much like hard hats on a construction site.  If you work in construction, you wear the required PPE.  No-one can tell the employer they cannot demand PPE.  Workers who refuse get sent home.  In any hospitality related job, workers who refuse vaccination should be sent home.”

So, the background to this incident is the coronavirus pandemic and the controversy over both the disease and the cure.  The disease is real, as every virologist and epidemiologist has convincingly explained.  In addition to the many preventable deaths, the crippling, long-term damage to the health of survivors is worrying.  It is not just the lungs that are affected.  So too are the brain, heart, liver, kidneys, and blood.  Governments all around the world are working with the World Health Organisation and centres for disease control to develop mechanisms for preventing and curing the diseases caused by this virus.

This has not stopped the many loud and deranged Covid-deniers out there.  Most of them are White but some of them Black.  Some White ones, like Robert Kennedy Jr are persons of influence.  They are listened to and believed by Anguillians, among others.

These vaccination sceptics are busy publishing propaganda against the vaccinations that are offered against the virus:  their approval was too hurried.  They are unproven treatments.  They will inject poisons into us.  They are intended to kill us off.  They are a conspiracy by foreign billionaires to reduce the earth’s population.

These messages of disinformation and misinformation by malicious trolls are widely propagated on Facebook, WhatsApp, Google, and other social media.  They have infected the minds of many otherwise intelligent listeners in Anguilla.  Some have understandably developed unfounded doubts about not just the existence of the virus but, more worrying, about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines.

So, back to the incident in question.  The radio host ranted on his radio programme for nearly an hour against this “bold statement made by that man.”  He repeatedly warned the citizen that he had overstepped his bounds.  What he wrote was disrespectful to Anguillians because he was not a “born Anguillian”.  His tone was too abrasive.  He was being disrespectful to Anguillians.  He had to understand that, as someone not born here, he could not be allowed to “get in front of Anguillians.”  Ninety percent of the villas are now owned by White expats.  They have taken over the villa business in Anguilla.  They have come to believe that all Anguillians are inferior to them.

According to the radio host, the citizen’s real offence was that he was an “expat”, a White man, lecturing Black Anguillians.  The radio host, while protesting that he was not a racist, that he loved some Whites who knew their place, proceeded to attack the citizen entirely based on his colour and place of origin.  Where, he asked, did this expat citizen get the power to be able to speak like this without fear to born Anguillians?  Who, he asked, emboldened him?  Who did he think he was to speak to Anguillians in this tone of voice?  He threatened ominously that this person ought to be afraid for speaking out in this way.  He needed to apologise to us for his words and their tone.  The warning of violence was unmistakable to the alert listener.

The radio host’s entire critique of the citizen was not a reasoned repudiation of the citizen’s opinion on this public health issue.  It was an unspoken but false suggestion that White people believe in the virus while Black people hold the better view that the virus is fake and the vaccination dangerous.  White people, he implied, conspire to kill off black people with a dangerous and unproven vaccination.  Four hundred years of slavery, he stated, had alerted Black Anguillians to be alert to the natural race prejudice of White people and to reject their views.  Black people were justified in refusing to accept the Covid vaccination.

It was a classic racist rant.  I know the radio host and I do not believe he is racially prejudiced.  But he must be careful about how he expresses himself.  Every word appeared designed to trigger outrage and fear in the Black listener. It was an indulgence in race blaming, envy, and victimhood.  It appeared designed to stir up listeners to condemn and destroy this stranger in their midst, this foreigner from afar who had dared to express his opinion about vaccination deniers.  It was a shameful performance on the part of the radio host.

The radio host seemed to assume that every Anguillian listening to his rant would agree with him.  It assumed that the average Anguillian shared his racist views.  I do not accept that Anguillians generally believe themselves, because of their colour or their place of birth, to be either victims or superior to anyone else.  This is not just a chip on the shoulder.  It is nothing but a demonstration of a crippling inferiority complex.

Personally, I believe that any person among us who refuses to take the anti-Covid vaccine when it is offered is a danger to not just himself.  He is a public health risk to the general population.  He should be sanctioned by law.  There should be a fine or imprisonment.

Those of us of a certain age can remember in the 1950s and 1960s when we were not allowed on an aeroplane if we could not produce the yellow WHO Smallpox vaccination certificate.  No sensible person at the time objected to this legal requirement.  If we are going to be enclosed in a limited space with fellow travelers, we should not be made to feel we are being entombed with them.  Once the Covid-19 vaccination campaign has come to an end, airlines and ferries should be obliged not to accept as a passenger anyone who does not produce a valid vaccination certificate.

When we are relaxing with friends around a social meal or a drink in a bar, we are entitled to feel safe.  We should not be exposed to reckless individuals who care nothing of our health.  In the USA, when we try to buy a drink in a bar, we are asked to show identification to prove we are over twenty-one.  We should similarly be required by law to show our vaccination certificate to prove we are safe to be included in the clientele.

Anyone refusing to be vaccinated in Anguilla should be refused entry to ‘planes, ferries, restaurants and bars.  It should be a prerequisite, an essential qualification, for employment in the tourism industry.  No teacher should be allowed in school who is not vaccinated.

It may not yet be politically feasible to make Covid-19 vaccinations compulsory by law.  But every effort should be made to encourage Anguillians to get vaccinated.  In fact, we need to work hard on vaccinations for disinformation of all kinds.

Anguilla in Quarantine

 

Anguilla is a typical small island developing state.  We have a tiny population of twelve thousand persons.  But we are required to provide most of the basic services for our people that large states do.  We have the same number of people as a small village in the UK or Nigeria.  But we are obliged to have a similar infrastructure as London or Abouja, including police, customs, and immigration departments.  While the world’s economy was booming, we were easily able to pay for this luxury.

When the international leisure industry was at its peak, we could pick up the crumbs to meet our public administration bills.  Before terrorism and money laundering became a world-wide issue, we could provide liberal financial services to the international community, and cream off some of the wealth to cover our government costs.  That has all changed now.

Unlike the islands around us, Anguilla has managed to stay Covid-free since the first 3 cases in March 2020.  We have done this by imposing strict quarantine and border control regulations.  So long as we maintain quarantine regulations and border closure, we can be relatively confident that we will remain safe.  At present, we insist that anyone arriving must quarantine, initially at government’s expense, in a secure location for between 10 and 14 days, depending on whether they come from a relatively Covid-free country or not.  They must also pay a charge to cover the cost of their quarantine and the ancillary services, such as food and security personnel.  But, with the economy collapsing, the good sense of these regulations is now being questioned.

From what I hear, hotel guests are cancelling their reservations for the 2020/2021 winter season.  As a result, it seems to me that most of the major hotels of Anguilla will be obliged to shutter for the season.  Restaurants, water sports companies, car rentals, holiday apartments, and other tourism-related businesses will be forced to close.  The excuse being given by some cancelling guests is that Anguilla’s quarantine restrictions prohibit their arrival on our shores.  They say they are going to spend the winter instead in Antigua and Saint Lucia.  There, they say, the Covid-19 regulations are much laxer.  We will have to wait and see.  Personally, I very much doubt there will be much tourism to Antigua or St Lucia in the coming 2020/2021 season.  Reservations in October do not automatically equate to warm beds in December.

Unemployment increases daily.  The hotels, especially the foreign-owned ones on Anguilla’s coastline, are now pressuring government to open.  We read that they accuse us of being unreasonable in our quarantine regulations.  They loudly proclaim in the press, and on TV, and radio that it is government’s fault that staff are being fired.  They say that, if only the quarantine regulations were slackened to be the same as Antigua and St Lucia, the staff would all be back at work.

This is all nonsense, of course.  Any thinking person who keeps up with the international news knows the truth.  It does not matter if every quarantine restriction is removed.  Few visitors will come to the Caribbean this winter.  Only the most reckless US or European traveller, careless of his or her health, will visit us for a holiday.

There is the problem with air lift.  We read that the world’s major airlines are mothballing their planes and laying off their staff.  Air France, Air Canada, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, each are applying for tens of billions of dollars from their governments to help them keep afloat.  They will likely not get it since there is no more money.  The cruise lines have all laid up their ships.  It is not likely they will get any more bail outs.  It seems to me that it will take another decade, if ever, for them to recover.

The bottom line is the leisure travel industry as we knew it pre-2020 is dead.  Few international travellers will be arriving on any Caribbean shores.  In my crystal ball, I see a full one half of the luxury hotels of Anguilla abandoned.  There will be palm trees growing out of their windows before long.  Most of the luxury restaurants will have sold their pots and pans and shut for good.  No more caviar and champagne.  From now on, we dine out on johnny cake and corned beef.  We must find other ways than tourism to occupy our time and earn an income.  And none of it will be due to the strict quarantine regulations now in force.

Perhaps most ominous for Anguilla’s economy, a recent report in the newspaper indicates that government’s revenue from taxes and licences is less than half what was budgeted for this year.  This revenue is needed to pay our bloated public service their salaries and other emoluments.  The situation is not sustainable.  Something has got to give.  Logically, with only half the revenue, we must cut our costs by a half.  Either we let go half of the public service, or they all stay on, but at half of their salaries.

Even with cost-cutting, the Anguilla as we know it is not sustainable.  The nanny-state that Anguilla aspired to be in the good times is now out of our reach.  We cannot afford any more subsidised education, health care, or social services.  These will shortly have to be met by user fees.  We must cease paying the cost of hospitalising in Panama our gunshot gangster youth.  These social services will soon be a thing of the past.  We just have not realized it yet.  And it is nothing to do with the strict quarantine and border control regulations.

Then, there is the possibility of coming international political and economic instability.  Trump has threatened that he is not going to leave the White House in January.  If civil disturbances break out in the United States this winter, there will be no airlines flying out of Kennedy or Miami International Airport to the Caribbean, even without the pandemic.

It may not happen on election day, November 3, or on December 14 when the Electoral College meets.  But, if by January 21, Inauguration Day, there is turmoil all over the United States, there will likely be no leisure travel from the US to the Caribbean.  If this occurs, we cannot blame either Covid or the British for the resulting economic catastrophe.

Then, there is natural traveller caution.  Covid-19 spreads fastest through the air in confined spaces.  In early 2020 at the start of the epidemic, cruise ships were centres of infection.  They are all laid up now.  I expect that, with a few foolhardy exceptions, they will not resume their cruise schedules until 2022.

Everything depends on the availability of a safe and effective vaccine.  The epidemiologists have explained why one will not be approved until early in 2021.  Even then, it will not be widely available to us until mid- to late-2021.  Without being vaccinated, no sensible person will choose to go on holiday overseas by sea or by air.

Meanwhile, doubts and confusion about vaccinations are being spread by anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists.  These operate both locally and internationally.  Recent surveys in the USA and Europe reveal that the result is that, even when a vaccine does become available, it will not quickly be taken up by everyone.  It may take years for most of the public to enjoy the benefits of vaccination.  Which one of us is going to be so negligent as to travel unvaccinated to a foreign country with medical services of an unknown quality for a holiday, amid a pandemic?  Even if Anguilla opened promiscuously, abandoning all health precautions, I do not believe that a single additional passenger will risk arriving on our shores at this time.

The conspiracy theorists are not helping.  Anguilla’s more racist conspiracy theorists are now filling the airwaves with dire warnings.  To hear their panicked voices, the UK public health system is putting pressure on Anguilla to shut our borders.  They express certainty that the white British are out to punish poor little black us.  Quite why the British would want to do such a thing to Anguilla is anyone’s guess.  But anti-British feeling, fuelled by a pernicious and ingrained racism, is prevalent among certain elements in our society.  As if the British have the slightest interest in causing Anguilla any harm!  They would probably have to pay to bail us out of it in the end, anyway.  But, there never had to be any good reason for conspiracy theories to flourish in the best of times.

Anguillians must face a new reality.  Nothing will be the same when this pandemic is over.  Public services will be pared down to a minimum.  The days when the Anguilla public service was used as a sponge to mop up the unemployed and the unemployable are over.  We can no longer afford to employ five persons to do the job of one as we presently do.

There is the little matter of our failure to enforce our own tax laws.  No enforcement proceedings have ever, to my knowledge, been brought against a single tax defaulter in the modern history of Anguilla.  We can no longer afford to continue forgiving persons who neglect to pay their taxes, as we have done for decades past.  If we do, why should any foreign taxpayer contribute to our self-created folly.

One last prediction.  The next time our government appeals to the British government for another hundred-million-dollar bail out, we will finally lose our entitlement state of mind.  The British deficit is presently about £300 billion.  I see the British PM responding to our Premier with these words, “Colonialism has been over for a long time.  We have looked at the books.  It appears that Anguilla has never in its history contributed anything to the British Treasury.  Do you not think it is about time that you helped us with our fiscal deficit?  We were thinking of a token contribution from you in the region of ten million US dollars.  How about it?”

If my cautionary words appear exaggerated to some, hopefully they will serve to counterbalance the ridiculous claim that our health quarantine regime has been imposed on our government by an oppressive and uncaring British government.

Necessary Cost Adjustments

 

Under the Quarantine Act and the Regulations made under it, Anguillians and residents of Anguilla returning home from certain countries that are experiencing dangerous levels of the Covid-19 disease, such as the USA, must be taken directly from the port they arrive at to an authorized place of quarantine.  There, they are provided with lodging, medical attention, security, food, and drink, all at the public expense.  This lasts for a period of approximately two weeks.  They are not allowed to pay for it.  Even if they wish to pay for their board and lodging, they are not permitted to do so.  The rules, they are told, require that this be a public expense.  Millions of dollars, I understand, have been disbursed by the past and present government on this venture since quarantines started in March.  This is an expense that was never budgeted for.  It is money that we can ill afford.  Our economy has tanked with the failure of our tourism industry since the start of the year due to the pandemic.

The House of Assembly should be asked to vote on a Bill to require persons who are detained, quarantined, or placed in isolation, to pay the costs of their quarantine.  Most if not all Anguillians will agree that this is a necessary reform.  It is unfair to the Anguillian public that we should have to pay the costs incurred by persons who choose to return to Anguilla at this time, and put us all to the risk of contracting the disease.  If returnees wish to enjoy the comfort and safety of home, they should be willing to pay for all associated costs incurred by their return from abroad.  This has become the international standard, and we will not be doing anything unusual in having our law ensure this.

Care must be taken to ensure such a provision does not offend against our constitutional right to freedom of movement.  There is an exception in cases of public health and safety.  The necessary Orders must first be made by the Governor and Executive Council under the Constitution and the Public Health Act.

It is a simple enough measure to enforce.  One of the conditions for permitting the return to Anguilla should be a payment of a deposit, say US$10,000.00, per person into the Treasury.  That would give the provision teeth.  The deposit will be refunded, less the cost of all disbursements associated with their quarantine, at the end of their quarantine.  If this proves too expensive for any would-be returnee, he or she is not obliged to make the payment.  They can simply stay where they are and save the cost of returning.

The duty to refund government’s costs should not be limited to persons who return to Anguilla with the permission of the Quarantine Authority.  It should extend to persons who enter illegally.  In the case of persons who are caught illegally entering Anguilla in breach of the Quarantine Act or any Regulations made under it, the Act should provide that one of the conditions for their release from custody is the payment of a cash bond, say US$10,000.00, to secure the refund to government of all costs incurred in their arrest and detention and medical treatment including but not limited to transportation, board, lodging, medical and other.  It should cover all costs of tracing and treating the persons who have encounter the illegal entrant.

Nor should this bond be limited to persons who want to return in the future.  There is nothing legally impossible or morally wrong in the law being drafted to authorize Government to demand a refund of part or all the past costs paid in maintaining earlier returnees in quarantine at the public expense.  Every effort should be made to recover the past costs incurred in relation to persons who have been given permission under the Quarantine Act and its Regulations to enter Anguilla since January 2020.  This may be hard on some of the persons and families affected.  They can be given time to meet the refund, and other terms.  In suitable cases, perhaps certified by the Department of Social Development after the application of a Means Test, the law might even provide for exceptions to be made.  In my view, most if not all the persons who have had their quarantine expenses paid for by government should be obliged to refund all the costs that were paid out of public funds.

What is certain is that we cannot continue to meet this expense.  We simply do not have the money in the public purse.  In one of his last speeches in the House of Assembly, the outgoing Minister of Finance revealed that our projected tax revenue for the year 2020 will be about one half of the amount budgeted.  Further, we do not know how long the quarantine provisions will have to continue into the future.  Given the irresponsible behaviour of the US and certain other governments in dealing with their own infections, it might last until well into 2022.

Since I wrote the above paragraphs, someone has pointed out to me a draft Quarantine (Amendment) Bill on the Order Paper for debate on 11 August.  It is a noticeably short Bill.  It provides,

“(1a) Notwithstanding subsection (1) the Quarantine Authority may require persons who are detained, quarantined or in isolation pursuant to this Act to pay in part or in full the expenses incurred by the Quarantine Authority in detaining, quarantining or isolating such persons.”

This is inadequate.  It is a token provision.  It is for show only.  It lacks teeth.  It is filled with loopholes.  It gives a power to charge the costs without any mechanism for collection. 

Bearing in mind that the Constitution limits the power of the Assembly to pass an Act restricting our freedom of movement, care must be taken to ensure that the necessary State of Emergency and Public Health Orders and Proclamations are renewed from time to time.  The ones made earlier this year all appear to have expired without being renewed.  Without care being taken, any law restricting entry into Anguilla by Anguillians may be unconstitutional and unenforceable.

And, while we are on cost cutting measures, is there any reason why a 40% tax cannot be imposed on all pensions previously paid to Ministers and Parliamentarians?  These payments have been a huge drain on our Treasury.  They have met with universal condemnation in Anguilla.  I do not have the exact figures at hand.  We have all seen various sums circulating in the media.  If these are correct, we have paid out tens of millions of dollars in the past several years in gratuities and pensions to retiring parliamentarians.  They need to do their part now that we are in crisis.  They need to refund some of this undeserved largess they paid themselves.  A 40% tax should be immediately imposed retroactively on the pensions and gratuities of every living parliamentarian who benefitted.  Retired parliamentarians and Ministers should be happy to agree to refund 40% of the very generous pensions and gratuities paid to them.  To answer the question at the start of the paragraph, care will have to be taken to ensure that such an Act does not offend against the protection of private property provision in the Anguilla Constitution.  If it does, then retired parliamentarians will need to be shamed into making a voluntary return of their ill-gained pensions.

Such an essential reform, if legal, is not intended to be retroactive only.  Entitlement to pension and gratuity for future retirees should be reduced accordingly, ie, by 40%.  Those who are presently in the House of Assembly and in Government would be aware of how untenable and unsustainable their overly generous pension provisions are.  There is no possible legal or moral objection that can be made to such a reduction.

While we are on the topic of curtailing benefits, why not extend the cuts to parliamentary salaries and allowances?  Anguillian politicians are in receipt of a high level of remuneration that is not matched in any other West Indian nation.  We have heard a previous Minister of Finance make a boast of the fact.  The levels of salaries were set during the 1980s and 90s when money was flowing into the Treasury like water under a bridge.  Those days are now long gone.  We cannot afford these excessive salaries any longer.  Ministers and Parliamentarians should agree in the public interest to reduce their salaries and allowances by 40% with immediate effect.  Such a contribution would meet with universal acclaim and appreciation in Anguilla.

Anguillians join in calling on Dr Ellis Lorenzo Webster, the Hon Premier and Minister of Finance, to move the necessary actions in the Executive Council.  We urge all Ministers and Ministerial Assistants to support these initiatives.  We call on all members of the Opposition to support these measures when they arrive before them as a series of Bills for debate.  We call on all members of the House of Assembly to pass the reforms into law without undue delay.