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Vol. 31, Issue 14 QUEENS/LONG ISLAND/BRONX/MANHATTAN April 3-9, 2020
LOCK
DOWNS
SURGE
Caribbean under severe
pressure from virus
By Bert Wilkinson
Several Caribbean trading
bloc governments rushed this
week to lock down countries or
dramatically restrict movement
of the public as the region battles
to contain the march of the
deadly Corona virus, community
spread in particular.
Cabinets in Bermuda, The
Bahamas, Barbados, Trinidad,
Suriname, St. Lucia, Dominica,
Antigua, Grenada and those in
associated states such as Curacao
among others, opted to
either impose total lock downs
of towns and cities or ordered
overnight curfews to minimize
large groups of people mingling
in public spaces.
In Trinidad, authorities are
hunting for a man who escaped
quarantine, fearing that he
might have been confined for
the mandatory 14-day period.
He, however, tested negative
but bolted nevertheless even
before being advised of his
results.
In neighboring Guyana,
Khalid Gobin, a Guyanese college
student at York University
in Canada has moved to court
in Guyana to win freedom from
what he called substandard
quarantine facilities. He alleges
that the quality of the militaryrun
facility south of the capital
is below standard and keeping
him there could endanger his
health as he is not carrying
the virus and was never even
tested by authorities. A judge
has strangely agreed to hear
his case this week.
Gobin was among a group
of Guyanese given special permission
by aviation officials to
come home on a charter flight
from Barbados last week even
after Guyana had banned passenger
flights. The group was
taken to the facility by medical
officials but most complained
about the standards, poor spacing
of beds and the inability
of family and friends to visit
them.
The case is being heard on
the same day that the aviation
department extended the
Tribute to our medics
Caribbean Life would like to recognise the tremendous work of all medical personnel
especially during this pandemic including Registered nurse Carol Walkin who
works in the ICU at Mount Sinai West. Carol Walkin
Brooklyn legislators rip Coumo’s
proposed hospital cuts
By Nelson A. King
Brooklyn Sen. Zellnor Y.
Myrie said he and five unidentified
members of the
New York State legislature
from Brooklyn have written
a scathing letter to Gov.
Andrew Cuomo in response
to his proposed Medicaid cut
that would slash funding to
hospitals in Central Brooklyn
by $38 million.
“We write to you today with
few words and short time: the
proposed cuts to our hospitals
in Central Brooklyn are
cruel, inhumane, and unacceptable,”
wrote the officials
in their letter on Friday.
The legislators said the proposed
cuts would hit major
hospitals that serve many of
Brooklyn’s majority black,
low-income communities.
As the officials wrote in
their letter, Kings County
Hospital is already operating
at 95 percent capacity and
using hand sanitizer to clean
and reuse face masks, the
elected officials said.
They said that doctors
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