Category Archives: Health

Business, COVID-19, Finance, General T&T, Health, Oil and Gas, Recession

Covid and gas pains: who’s crying now?

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By Raffique Shah
January 03, 2022

Raffique ShahThe Covid-induced confinement imposed on citizens by the Government provoked a range of reactions—from anger and drunkenness to solitude and self-pity. Some persons came perilously close to crossing the thin line between sanity and insanity.

I was lucky to have lived the multi-faceted life I did before the pandemic—soldier, adventurer, prisoner, politician, teacher and a range of other life-skills that prepared me for just about anything I might face during the pandemic. Of course, as a human being and more so a humanist, I was shocked by the mass of people globally who were impacted by the virus, by how many were dying “live” before the lenses of reporters’ cameras, ­agony etched on their faces, questions writ large on them: why me?
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COVID-19, General T&T, Health, International

Be done with the lies: They’re killing us

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By Raffique Shah
December 27, 2021

Raffique ShahTwenty twenty-one will be recorded as the year in which the Earth was battered by calamitous events that seemed set to fulfil the biblical end-times that Man has feared from the dawn of civilisation, or the advent of religions.

There were heat waves that sparked forest fires that ravaged Western America and huge swathes of the vital Amazon jungle, and shockingly, the Tundra region in the sensitive Arctic Circle.
Continue reading Be done with the lies: They’re killing us →

COVID-19, General T&T, Health, Politics

Let Medical Professionals Speak on COVID Vaccines

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By Stephen Kangal
December 23, 2021

Stephen KangalThe emotionally charged response of Prime Minister Rowley to the Sunday Express feature article is exclusively more political than the requisite scientific in relation to his weak defense of the alleged low efficacy of the Sinopharm vaccine.

He procured it with a secretive agreement from the Chinese with a huge cost — loan in a large quantity without obtaining any expected guarantee about its expected efficacy level even though scientists from developed countries refused to accept it as a genuine vaccine because trial results were not published globally and were not accessible.
Continue reading Let Medical Professionals Speak on COVID Vaccines →

China, COVID-19, General T&T, Health

PM, PAHO, Chinese Embassy condemn news report on Sinopharm

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By Rishard Khan
December 20, 2021 – guardian.co.tt

Sinopharm vaccineThe Chinese Embassy, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the St Augustine Medical Laboratory (STAML), have all condemned an Express newspaper article [Putting vaccines to the test] that challenged the efficacy of the Sinopharm vaccine.

The article, published in the newspaper’s Sunday edition, implied the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine is ineffective at generating immunity against the disease.
Continue reading PM, PAHO, Chinese Embassy condemn news report on Sinopharm →

COVID-19, General T&T, Health, Politics

Do your duty, dammit!

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By Raffique Shah
December 20, 2021

Raffique ShahI do not believe there is a common factor that unites people of any particular pigmentation or persuasion across the world, except, perhaps, religious doctrines that are deemed to be the “words of God”, written or revealed by the Almighty Himself, hence not subject to alterations by man.

Those of us who have studied history know only too well that in the name of religion, of spreading the word of God, atrocities were committed, entire civilisations were wiped off the map, and the anointed soldiers of God just moved on to other souls to be saved by swiping heads off bodies, then raiding their treasures.
Continue reading Do your duty, dammit! →

COVID-19, General T&T, Health

Brian Manning, wife contract COVID-19

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By Yvonne Webb
December 06, 2021 – newsday.co.tt

Brian Manning and his wife, Shelly DassSan Fernando East MP Brian Manning and his wife, Shelly Dass, have both contracted the covid19 virus.

Reports indicate that Manning, Minister in the Ministry of Finance, is receiving care at the High Dependency Unit (HDU) of the Couva Hospital and Multi-Training Facility.
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COVID-19, General T&T, Health

Working together

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 06, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeTrinidad and Tobago is a small society. It consists of about 1.4 million souls in a world of 7.9 billion people. A pandemic has struck the world.

At the time of writing, there were 263,510,704 cases and 5,224,655 deaths as a result of this pandemic. In the United States, there were 48,144,799 cases and 777,090 deaths; in India, 34,606,541 cases and 470,115 deaths; in Brazil, 22,105,872 cases and 614,964 deaths.
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COVID-19, General T&T, Health

Fear of the needle

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By Raffique Shah
November 29, 2021

Raffique ShahOne of the fundamental though unwritten rights citizens in every country in the world enjoy is the inviolable, unfettered right to be an ass. Or a coward. From the uneducated, the ignorant, to brilliant scholars among the intelligentsia, and otherwise sensible people who are law-abiding and look and act normal in every circumstance, aberrations occur that debunk the presumption that every human being is endowed with some degree of intelligence, acting totally irrational, asinine in the extreme, leaving sane and sober people around to ponder if they are looking at and listening to men or animals, no disrespect intended for the latter species.
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COVID-19, General T&T, Health

Is this really a pandemic of the unvaccinated?

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By Kevin Baldeosingh
November 20, 2021 – trinidadexpress.com

Kevin BaldeosinghIn virtually every statement issued by the Ministry of Health (MoH), the public is assured that this is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”.

My question is, how do they know?

If the MoH has been doing contact tracing that proves unjabbed people are the ones infecting others, they haven’t said so.
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COVID-19, Elections, General T&T, Health, PNM, Politics, Tobago

Odd SoE decision

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Express Editorial
November 15, 2021 – trinidadexpress.com

PM Dr Keith RowleyGiven the Prime Minister’s statement that he had no intention of seeking an extension of the state of emergency when it came to a natural end at month-end, we, too, are taken aback by his decision to end the SoE on Wednesday, 12 days ahead if its scheduled end.
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