Come what may, Red Zones will no longer be decreed and quarantine will be abolished. As of August 31, quarantine will give way to home-isolation for the person tested positive of the coronavirus. It will be up to him to ensure that his family is not contaminated. Nevertheless, home-isolation will be followed by PCR testing by the government, as was already the practice for some professionals! There has been an increase in positive cases with some even leading to deaths, there have been closures of certain businesses and offices in both public and private sectors as well as schools and academic institutions from pre-primary to tertiary before their reopening after a few days… There have been hundreds of inhabitants in a single region tested positive, public stances… But still…
The Minister of Health stands firm and he is as much smiling as reassuring in his statements and declarations on the massive rise in positive cases among both Mauritians and foreign workers. The latter are isolated in their dormitories while their neighbourhoods are under high police surveillance. Amongst the major cases are 99% asymptomatic cases at a rate of 60% of the population vaccinated with one dose and 40% with the two recommended doses. These are used to temporise the situation as well as the questions that arise in the minds of the most concerned specialists, politicians, citizens’ federations and especially the media. Press releases and bulletins are ripped from details and have now been reduced to a figure of the day. In addition, communications in general; if not to say, always unavailable respondents, even those recruited for this purpose; are only very brief, very vague and above all incomplete. The Mauritian population still needs to be informed properly and clearly.
As far as private businesses and offices are concerned, as well as civil servants, the situation is as follows: each time that a new case is detected, the premises will be closed for disinfection for two days. The positive case, as well as any suspected case, is sent for isolation in a hotel establishment or simply to his home and a contact tracing exercise is set up.
The DPM and Minister of Education, Leela Devi Dookun Luchoomun, recently announced in parliament during a question time on Tuesday 27th July that “the closure of schools is not on the cards“. Every time there is a request for clarification, the 12 to 17 year old vaccine is used as a shield.
Thus, the basic strategy for the proper management of this epidemic is to reduce Covid to a simple subject, trivialise it, simplify it, normalise it and back it all up with a calculated dissimulation of information in an attempt to chase any concerns or questions or to muzzle it. The government’s mission seems to be Collective Immunity and that’s it, business as usual!
This new approach has been noticeable a few weeks prior to the partial reopening of our country, that is July 1st, and has become even more virulent or restrictive since the reopening of our borders on 15th July.
None of the parties concerned want to create a new psychosis around an epidemic that has spread throughout the world since the beginning of 2020. It is a question of transparency and awareness. In Mauritius, we are still half confined, still masked, still half in restriction, therefore half threatened to spread, or to contract as well as to re-contract! Being vaccinated does not mean being immune as the same ministry or its minister has already said. We have to live with Covid-19, it’s the ‘New Normal’ promoted by the government. But how can we adopt these new normalities if the most responsible ones expose the situation as a simple flu?
We need to ask ourselves if countries such as Australia, Reunion are imposing such strict measure, should we not learn from them?
Should we adopt the same attitude as the DPM, Steven Obeegadoo during his intervention on the CNN stating that in Mauritius, we are “Relatively Covid 19 Safe“? The question arises… and again!
