I was having a think the other day and I said to myself the Caribbean and Central American region is not together as a cohesive unit. I then thought to myself why would that be? I honestly could not answer it.
It can’t all be about race as we are predominantly people of a darker skin colour. Then I said to myself it must be because we just don’t like one another, but how can we really not like one another when while we are in the same region, most of us have never met each other?
Why is it that the human spirit’s first inclination is to hate and not love? We are conditioned to not be together. We learned to dislike one another. How can we when we are all so much alike, COVID has taught me that the people in Guatemala can catch COVID-19n just like the people in Bermuda.
Take for further example with this COVID-19 vaccine, you could have sworn that because we are all suffering with it we would all come together to ensure that a vaccine is delivered to all countries in the region at the same time. United we stand and divided we fall.
But, no. We have been getting vaccines in silos, one country get’s a batch this month and the other another month and so on and so forth. When if we all came together under one umbrella with one voice we could have gotten 1m doses and have it spread around the region. One time.
Some would say that that is exactly what regional governments did with the COVAX arrangement with the World Health Organisation. Then if that was the case my news feed would have been flooded with announcements on when vaccines are to reach each country in and around the same date and time as the others. I’m sure financing was a concern, but then the regional development agencies like the Caribbean Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank made sure money was available for countries to borrow so they can access the COVAX facility.
I guess each country has to look out for its own people. That is understandable. But it is times like these when we need to rise above and ensure that the least of us have access. Just my humble rathers!