Guyanese await COVID-19 racial disparities
final vote count
main outfits have poll statements showing
that they had won.
A team picked by CARICOM is already
on the ground to act as monitors. Police
have cordoned off the counting center
next to the CARICOM Secretariat and
livestreaming of the exercise will take
place.
The bitter standoff between the governing
coalition led by retired army
general David Granger and the PPP of
former Housing Minister, Irfaan Ali
has much to do with a country set
to become one of the wealthiest per
capita in the hemisphere in the coming
months in the wake of the commencement
of offshore oil production last
December.
An international consortium led by
American supermajor ExxonMobil has
since December pumped and exported
about eight million barrels of Guyana’s
sweet, light crude to global markets.
For its part, Guyana will this year get
to sell its share of five million barrels of
oil, worth about $300 million, if prices
move back up to levels before the recent
price war between Saudi Arabia and
Russia and decreased demand form the
global Covid-19 lockdown.
General sentiments in Guyana is that
whichever party wins the 2020 elections
with the massive wealth looming
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from production of about 750,000
barrels daily by 2025, that party will
likely control the country for decades.
That is what is at stake analysts say.
By 2025, oil and gas would likely have
surpassed traditional economic pillars
— gold, sugar, rice, timber and bauxite
in importance.
Granger, 74, said in a national broadcast
this week that “I shall accept the
declaration of the results by the commission,
which will allow for a democratically
elected government to be
sworn in to office. The entire nation is
awaiting the completion of the recount
of the ballots, and the declaration of the
results by the commission.”
Continued from Page 1
of government were contributing factors
in these disparities, and asked that
the Department of Justice conduct a
full investigation into any potential civil
rights violations.
This request was reiterated in a virtual
press conference on Wednesday.
“The racial disparity in COVID-19
impact is not confined to one city or
state – it is a nationwide issue, just as
the systemic inequities at its root are
ingrained across the nation,” Williams
said.
“We need to be able to hold leaders
accountable at all levels, from our federal
government down, including state
and municipal governments who have
contributed to this disparity, through
their response or failure to respond to
this crisis,” added the son of Grenadian
immigrants.
According to Williams, across the
country, communities of more color are
seeing a disproportionate and deadly
impact of the coronavirus outbreak,
“which has been confirmed by data that
has so far been reported.”
While advocates and public officials
across the country seek the release of
further data, Williams said, in New York
City, Black and Latino New Yorkers
account for 51 percent of the population
but 62 percent of deaths.
In Michigan, he said African Americans
make up 14 percent of the population
and 40 percent of the fatalities.
In Chicago, Williams said African
Americans make up 52 percent of cases
but 72 percent of deaths.
Local leaders have pushed for additional
racial data to uncover deeper disparities
and systemic inequities.
In their letter, the local leaders argue
that “The unequal impact of the COVID-
19 pandemic on protected classes is a
civil rights issue.
“The disparities are merely the most
recent nationwide manifestation of policies
and practices that fail to protect
communities of color and perpetuate
racial inequities. While viruses do not
discriminate, people do,” they add.
Specifically, the leaders request that
the Department of Justice probe the
following areas for plausible civil rights
and other legal violations: Unequal
access to information and resources;
imbalanced distribution of resources
to households; unequal distribution of
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
to hospitals and other care facilities;
unequal distribution in the roll out
and expansion of COVID-19 sample collection
and testing centers in racial
and ethnic minority and immigrant
neighborhoods; hospitals, laboratories
and health care facilities struggled to
acquire testing machines, supplies, reagents,
and associated components; and
lack of universal testing for pregnant
women.
Continued from Page 1
Guyana’s President David A. Granger.
Associated Press / Kevin Hagen
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