COVID-19 could hit Guyana like a tsunami.
Medical experts in the United States have estimated, if everything is done right, the best case scenario is 250,000 dead. On the other hand, the worse case scenario is 2.5M dead. This is a minimum of 0.08% and a maximum of 0.8% of the population. Yes, the United States of America, with all of its cutting edge healthcare technology, could lose as much as 0.8% of it’s population.
A lot of these death will be because the healthcare system could be overwhelmed. There could be serious shortages of ventilators, which are needed to assist the critically ill to breathe. Personal protective equipment (PPE) needed by healthcare providers could also be in short supply. The more healthcare providers infected is the less who will be available to serve the public. Fortunately, the United States have the capacity to mobilize the manufacturing capacity to churn out the needed ventilators, PPEs and test kits.
In Guyana, four persons died so far. Hopefully the death toll remains at four, or at a minimum does not increase significantly. For this we have to keep our fingers crossed and pray. We have to pray, that despite we do not have a first class healthcare like the US, our death rate does not approach the numbers in the United States.
If our best case scenario is 0.08% of the population, then we could project 600 deaths as a result of COVID-19. However things could be worse. If we fail to mobilize the needed equipment, and implement the needed social distancing measures we could approach the United States worse case scenario of 0.8% of the population. That would be 6,000 deaths as a result of COVID-19. This is a national security crisis.
It is time we put systems in place to shut down the country. This is the only way we could effectively fight this virus.