PNP covid-19 messaging is disjointed ,confusing and dangerous

The opposition PNP has demonstrated in no uncertain terms, that had it been in office when the pandemic struck, we would have been in deep trouble as the party messaging on the virus has been confusing at best and dangerous at worst.

At the start of the outbreak, the PNP castigated the government for taking too long to close the border and then asserted that, those delays resulted in the virus gaining access to the country.

A few weeks later the PNP team of Dr Morais Guy, Dr Shane Alexis, Dr Dayton Campbell and Dr DeLa Haye and blasted the government for taking too long to reopen the borders as cases of covid began to surge in the country. This was being done while the government was working on its covid re-entry strategies to ensure that those who are coming in can be tested and housed at government facilities if positive.

At every step of the pandemic the PNP has been uncooperative and has sought to provide misinformation to the population, which has casued the government to spend valueable time fighting fake news that could have otherwise been spent fighting the virus.

In one of its many press conference Dr Shane Alexis noted ” The government is wicked and unconscionable as it has locked covid in and locked Jamaicans out” and demanded that all Jamaicans overseas must be allowed in as its their constitutional rights.

When the government called election for September 3, 2020 the opposition blasted the government for being reckless and pointing out that under the constitution election was not due until Feb 2021 and it was callous of the government to have been calling an election in the middle of a pandemic with case count rising.

One PNP advisor Dr Canute Thompson blasted the government saying the Prime Minister Andrew Holness was not a real leader as a real leader would not do such a thing to its residents.

Below is a graph of the case count when the election was actually called and held along with position of case count when the PNP and many of its experts said, the elections should have been called. Clearly the move by Andrew Holness to call the elections when he did was pure genius

The PNP continued to be critical of every single move made the government while at the same time refusing to tell the country in its almost weekly process conferences to follow the MOH covid protocols , this led many people to no longer trust the messaging by the government and thus resorted to conspiracy theories .

Now getting much traction the PNP and its surrogates in the media accused the government of pure PR and then launched a vicious assault on the marketing company Market Me which was by then been coordinating the Jamaica moves campaign and helping the communication effort as we battled fake news, the PNP and covid.

The assaults on a Jamaica home grown company was one of the worst I have ever witnessed and at the end of the day there was no evidence to suggest the company had done anything wrong. What the PNP was however able to successfully accomplish, was to kill the communication messaging from the government , thus allowing its plants to resume the fake news spread.

The slowdown in the communication process resulted in calls being made for the government to improve its public education and communication strategy to stop the spread of fake news, which was actually the intent of the PNP when it decided to go after Market me.

Now fast forward to Feb 2021 when the PNP’s Dr Morais Guy and its leader Mark Golding accused the government of being derelict by virtue of it allowing Barbados to receive and having its citizen vaccinated (Feb 10, 20212)before we got even one vial.

The opposition PNP said the government was at the back of the line by virtue of failed diplomacy and for its refusal to accept a vaccine that had not yet been approved by the WHO. The PNP told Jamaicans that story, who then repeated the narrative that, we were at the back of the line because the government had chosen to follow the law vs breaking the very law designed to ensure that Jamaicans at no point in time would ever accept drugs that had not been approved by a world governing body.

The PNP continued it assault on the government accusing it of failing to secure much need vaccines via the Covax platform as well as on the world market at a time when other countries around the world had received and started to inoculate its people. Incidentally the first shipment of vaccines under the Covax facility was delivered to Ghana on Feb 24, just 8 days after the vaccine was approved by the WHO on Feb 15, 2021

The PNP kept up its assault on the country by asserting that members of the security forces ( JDF) who by virtue of their physicals make up and training should not be vaccinated as even if they became sick they are likely to recover faster and persons 60 years and over.

Anyone who lives in Jamaica and who has even a basic understanding of the role the JDF plays in Jamaica, knows they are front line in the crime fight. We would have seen on March 5, 2021 how a joint miltioary patrol broke up a vicious gang operating in the bedward gardens comminuty of August town.

The PNP in seeking to provide a basis for its objections asserted that, according to WHO and CDC guidelines the army was not considered front line and this the government was NOT following the guidelines of these established health authorities.

Now lets pause for a second, this was the same PNP who less than a month ago blasted the government for “waiting” on approval from the WHO to secure the Astra Zeneca vaccine for the people of this country.

The move to object the JDF securing vaccines on the face of its could be seen to be downright lack of proper judgment by the PNP but let’s ask , was there a more sinister move by the PNP. Let’s face it, we are not only fighting covid , but we are in a fight with criminals as well and the JDF plays a very important support role in this fight.

I am hoping that the PNP is not hoping that by delaying the inoculation of the JDF, the nations security apparatus will be weakened which will then reduce of ability to facedown criminals thus giving the PNP another talking point about the government crime fighting strategies are not working, I pray God I am wrong on this count.

Long piece I know but I had to write out my thoughts today.

Bless