August 2020 – Go Lean…Caribbean

Month: August 2020

Pandemic Playbook – Success Looks like New Zealand

Posted on August 30, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Locations, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Keeping up with the Joneses.

It is so hard to be an island, off the coast of a continent.

Or is it?!

The island-nation of New Zealand seems to have gotten “it” right. What is the “it”? The management of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. They have demonstrated how to do “it” right.

… and in doing so have provided us in the Caribbean a role model for how to do “it”. They are the Joneses we need to keep up with.

See how New Zealand’s success is being described in this globally respected Trade Journal, Contagion^® – a fully integrated news resource covering all areas of infectious disease; (also see the related VIDEO):

Title: How Did New Zealand Control COVID-19?
By: Kevin Kunzmann Contagion Live
New Zealand, a modern small island nation, has become an emblematic champion of proper prevention and response to the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Leading into this weekend, the country of approximately 5 million has just 2 dozen active COVID-19 cases—a full month after having reported absolutely none, on the backbone of strict initial travel policies, science-based government action, and strategies responsive to testing limitations.

What else went into New Zealand’s pandemic response—and what could serve as guidance for other countries?

A new correspondence published in The New England Journal of Medicine from a team of New Zealand-based investigators at the University of Otago highlighted the public health successes of the country—measures which have brought New Zealand to the post-elimination phase of response approximately 100 days after its first case.

The trio of authors—Michael G. Baker, MB, ChB; Nick Wilson, MB, ChB, MPH; Andrew Anglemyer, PhD, MPH—wrote SARS-CoV-2 introduction to New Zealand was known to be imminent early on, due to a great rate of visiting tourists and students from Europe and China annually.

In fact, their disease models showed estimated wide pandemic spread, with capability to “overwhelm” the healthcare system and disproportionately affect Maori and Pacific persons.

“New Zealand began implementing its pandemic influenza plan in earnest in February, which included preparing hospitals for an influx of patients,” they wrote. “We also began instituting border-control policies to delay the pandemic’s arrival.”

The first New Zealand COVID-19 case was diagnosed February 26, around the same time that global agencies began reporting the SARS-CoV-2 infection was behaving more like a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) than an influenza—giving investigators hope for containment.

Because of lacking testing and contact-tracing capability in mid-March, the country’s leaders made a dramatic and critical switch in strategy: from mitigating the disease, to eliminating it.

A countrywide lockdown—Alert Level 4—was implemented on March 26.

“After 5 weeks, and with the number of new cases declining rapidly, New Zealand moved to Alert Level 3 for an additional 2 weeks, resulting in a total of 7 weeks of what was essentially a national stay-at-home order,” authors wrote.

It was in early May that the last identified COVID-19 case was observed in the community; with the patient placed in isolated, the country had ended its community spread. On June 8, the New Zealand moved to Alert Level 1—in 103 days, they had declared the pandemic over in the country.

At the time of the paper’s publishing, New Zealand had just 1569 cases, 22 deaths, and a coronavirus-related mortality of 4 per 1 million—the lowest reported rate among 37 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“Many parts of the domestic economy are now operating at pre-COVID levels,” authors wrote. “Planning is under way for cautious relaxing of some border-control policies that may permit quarantine-free travel from jurisdictions that have eliminated COVID-19 or that never had cases.”

However, the post-elimination stage of the pandemic is not certain for safety. The authors noted the only cases identified in the country are via international travelers kept in government-managed quarantine or isolation for 2 weeks post-arrival. Failures of border control or continued quarantine/isolation policies could result in new spread.

“New Zealand needs to plan to respond to resurgences with a range of control measures, including mass masking, which hasn’t been part of our response to date,” authors wrote.

But there are takeaways from the early and immediate successes of the New Zealand response. The authors credited the combination of immediate risk assessment driven by science, with the decisive actions of the government.

Additionally, the country’s border-control strategies, as well as both community-based and individual case-based control measures, were overall effective in eliminating the virus’ presence when mitigation was no longer feasible.
Lastly, the authors praised their leader’s message.

“Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern provided empathic leadership and effectively communicated key messages to the public—framing combating the pandemic as the work of a unified “team of 5 million”—which resulted in high public confidence and adherence to a suite of relatively burdensome pandemic-control measures,” they wrote.

Source: Posted August 9, 2020; retrieved August 30, 2020 from: https://www.contagionlive.com/news/how-did-new-zealand-control-covid19

—————

VIDEO 1 – Sharing COVID-19 experiences: The New Zealand response – https://youtu.be/bLT-XdPRUAA

World Health Organization (WHO)
Posted July 7, 2020 – In response to community transmission of COVID-19, New Zealand implemented a range of measures to contain the virus, including extensive testing, contact tracing and clear and consistent communications to the public. On 8 June 2020, the government reported that there was no more active transmission of the virus in the country but stressed that it needed to remain vigilant. This video tells the story of New Zealand’s response. More information: www.who.int/COVID-19.

The member-states of the Caribbean, individually and collectively, need an efficient and effective Playbook to manage the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. The Playbook must include strategies, tactics and implementations to mitigate and abate the underlying influenza conditions. This is exactly what New Zealand did:

Control the borders, so as eliminate any new flu arrivals.
Test the full population to identify infections
Contact Trace and capture movement data on all possible infected candidates
Lockdown communities as needed, catch and release promptly
Make decisions related to economic engines – cash crops – based on near-term and long-term benefits
Fund subsistence … adequately – 2-week wage subsidy
Embrace e-Learning and work from home
Embrace e-Government
Be an early adopter on scientific solutions
Remain vigilant, even in success.

While this commentary addresses the Pandemic Playbook for the Caribbean region and compares it to New Zealand, we are not trying to compete, we are only trying to learn Best Practices. This commentary concludes the 6-part Teaching Series for the month of August 2020 on the subject of Pandemic Playbooks – the need for them and the deficiency there of in the Caribbean status quo. This is the final entry, 6-of-6, from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

Pandemic Playbook: Worldwide Leadership – Plan ==> Actual
Pandemic Playbook: Caribbean Inadequacies – Missing the Bubble Opportunities
Pandemic Playbook: Bahamas Example – ‘Too Little Too Late’
Pandemic Playbook: Only at the Precipice ENCORE
Pandemic Playbook: To Be or Not To Be – COVID Vaccine
Pandemic Playbook: Success – Looks like New Zealand

The references to New Zealand apply to their government, yes, but compliance is expected on the part of the people and institutions. Like everywhere, there is dissent, opposition and pushback. But look at the result:

Economy resumed.
Lives protected
Kids are in school … now.
Tourism soaring – (visitors must submit to testing).
Global respect heightened.

So success in New Zealand has culled any resistance. See the portrayal in the VIDEO here depicting the PM vs Opposition:

VIDEO 2 – Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins go head to head on wage subsidy and Covid testing | nzherald.co.nz – https://youtu.be/I1RDlvL4VUo

nzherald.co.nz
Posted August 25, 2020 – National leader Judith Collins continues to press the Government in Question Time this afternoon over its decision not to extend the wage subsidy scheme and testing in managed isolation.

Full story: http://nzh.tw/12359734
Subscribe: https://goo.gl/LP45jX
Check out our playlists: https://goo.gl/Swd249
Like NZ Herald on Facebook: https://goo.gl/tUC4oq
Follow NZ Herald on Instagram: https://goo.gl/oLicXe
Follow NZ Herald on Twitter: https://goo.gl/Wi6mbv

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the full execution of the strategies, tactics and implementations to plan and respond to disasters – pandemics have always been considered among the threats – the Clear and Present Dangers. These points had been embedded in the 2013 book and further refined by looking, listening and learning from other communities managing their own epidemic and infectious disease episodes. We previously considered these infectious diseases:

New Zealand provides a good role model for us in the Caribbean, Their pattern of Good Governance is consistent. We have looked, listened and learned from New Zealand before; they had provided other examples of Best Practices, beyond Pandemic Playbooks. See this sample of previous blog-commentaries featuring New Zealand:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17267	Way Forward – For Justice: Special Prosecutors – NZ examples abound
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15075	e-Government example in Zealand
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14811	New Zealand’s openness benefiting from International College Students
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13746	New Zealand’s Homeland Security preparedness with ANZUS Alliance
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13579	NZ reconciliation of Past Colonialism with Indigenous People
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13155	NZ use of Underwater Pipelines to connect remote islands to power grid
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12447	NZ’s Westminster but with mixed-member proportional representation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11989	NZ’s Great Model as one of the first countries to allow Diaspora Voting

The Coronavirus COVID-19 virus can be mastered; we see success in New Zealand. They have done it, so can we.

As related in the foregoing, New Zealand provides a great role model for the Caribbean in a number of subject areas; here is an additional one:

Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are women, Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins respectively.

Perhaps, one reason for the efficiency and effectiveness of New Zealand’s government is that they draw upon the best people in-country, no matter the person’s gender. This point about Gender Equality aligns with another previous blog-commentary from November 14, 2015:

So how do we seriously consider reforming government in the Caribbean?

Start anew.

Start with politics and policy-makers.

Start with the people who submit for politics, to be policy-makers

Start with people who participate in the process.

Considering the status-quo of the region – in crisis – there is this need to start again. But this time we need more women.

The Caribbean member-states, individually and collectively, need the strategy of a Pandemic Playbook. This is a requirement for Good Governance; it mandates that we submit to Science and then Better Science.

Even our neighbor to the north, United States of America, can benefit from New Zealand’s example. as we related back on May 30, 2020 in this previous Go Lean commentary:

Good Leadership: Example – “Leader of the Free World”?
The current POTUS (President of the United States) – Donald Trump – is not to be credited as the “Leader of the Free World”. He has not provided a good example of Good Leadership. He is not ready, willing nor able. This is not our opinion alone …

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments and citizens – to deploy an effective and efficient Pandemic Playbook for our region. This is the purpose of the Go Lean roadmap; this is how we can make the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play.

New Zealand did it; we can too. So our vision, this quest is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂

About the Book
The book Go Lean…Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), for the elevation of Caribbean society – for all member-states. This CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Who We Are
The movement behind the Go Lean book – a non-partisan, apolitical, religiously-neutral Community Development Foundation chartered for the purpose of empowering and re-booting economic engines – stresses that reforming and transforming the Caribbean societal engines must be a regional pursuit. This was an early motivation for the roadmap, as pronounced in the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 12 – 14):

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. …

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accidence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accidence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … . On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments/communities like … [New Zealand].

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

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Disaster, Model, Transform

Pandemic Playbook – COVID Vaccine: To Be or Not To Be

Posted on August 29, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Social, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

To be or not to be; that is the question – Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Is it worth it to “hang in there”? This is a question for us in the Caribbean as well. The world is enduring the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic crisis; it is wreaking havoc on the world’s economic engines – $250 Billion a day in losses – and Public Health deliveries. The only hope is a vaccine, of which there are a number of them in development (Phase I – Test Tubes, Phase II – Lab Mice, Phase III – Human Trials). Around $10bn is being spent on finding a vaccine for this Coronavirus.

Will you consume or ingest the eventual vaccine?

Will you allow your children to ingest? What percentage of people in the community will refuse to ingest?

What if consumption is a prerequisite for work, school, church, travel, etc.?

To be or not to be; that is the question
To be or not to be’ is a soliloquy of Hamlet’s – meaning that although he is speaking aloud to the audience none of the other characters can hear him. Soliloquies were a convention of Elizabethan plays where characters spoke their thoughts to the audience. Hamlet says ‘To be or not to be’ because he is questioning the value of life and asking himself whether it’s worthwhile hanging in there. He is extremely depressed at this point and fed up with everything in the world around him, and he is contemplating putting an end to himself. – Source
——
See Hamlet’s full Soliloquy in the Appendix below.

Do you want cultural suicide or do you want to be a part of the future world?

Please note: You will not be a Guinea Pig; those were the rodent-like creatures that functioned as Lab Mice. Also, you are not a part of the Human Trials. So at the point that the vaccine offer is made to you, many iterations of Quality Assurance would have already been executed.

When exactly will a vaccine be ready?

We are not certain of the Day/Time, but we can say SOON. See this VIDEO as it addresses this and other related issues:

VIDEO – Covid-19: When will a vaccine be ready? | The Economist – https://youtu.be/FgR6t7vQtn8

The Economist
Posted August 14, 2020 – Around $10bn is being spent on finding a vaccine for coronavirus—it’s not nearly enough. And even when a covid-19 vaccine is found how should it be distributed fairly? Our experts answer your questions.

00:00 Covid-19: When will a vaccine be ready?
00:50 Will there ever be a “silver-bullet” vaccine?
01:41 How long would it take for the whole world to be vaccinated?
02:25 Who benefits financially from the vaccine?
03:54 How much will each vaccine cost?
05:10 What percentage of Americans do you estimate will choose not to get vaccinated & how much of an issue will this be?
06:44 In an ideal world, how should a vaccine be optimally distributed?
07:21 Will new versions of the vaccine be required periodically?
07:54 Will developing countries receive equal access to the vaccine, or will they be left behind?
08:50 Should richer countries pay for vaccines in the developing world?
10:01 How should we respond to crises like this one in the future?

Further reading:
Find The Economist’s most recent coverage of covid-19 here: https://econ.st/3iwmMMH

Sign up to The Economist’s daily newsletter to keep up to date with our latest covid-19 coverage: https://econ.st/2Ckne0X

Listen to “The Intelligence” podcast about the vaccine candidates and equitable distribution: https://econ.st/3aqh4Jl

How the world can think better about catastrophic and existential risks: https://econ.st/2CqYN28

Read our leader on how people must adapt to living in the covid-19 pandemic era: https://econ.st/3gSw0SS

How SARS-CoV-2 causes disease and death in covid-19: https://econ.st/33S1jcU

Covid-19 testing labs are being overwhelmed: https://econ.st/3iDGMx1

How the pandemic has shown the urgency of reforming care for the elderly: https://econ.st/2XUqfgh

Read about the hunt for the origins of covid-19: https://econ.st/3iAoX1L

This commentary addresses the Pandemic Playbook for the Caribbean region – asserting that it should include vaccines. This continues the Teaching Series for the month of August 2020 on the subject of Pandemic Playbooks – the need for them and the deficiency there of in the Caribbean. This is entry 5-of-6 from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

Pandemic Playbook: Worldwide Leadership – Plan ==> Actual
Pandemic Playbook: Caribbean Inadequacies – Missing the Bubble Opportunities
Pandemic Playbook: Bahamas Example – ‘Too Little Too Late’
Pandemic Playbook: Only at the Precipice ENCORE
Pandemic Playbook: To Be or Not To Be – COVID Vaccine
Pandemic Playbook: Success – Looks like New Zealand

A big area of consideration must be past history:

COVID-19 is not the first pandemic
COVID-19 immunization would not be the first vaccine

What lessons can we learn from past considerations of this “To Be or Not To Be” vaccine drama?

Let’s consider the historicity (good, bad and ugly) of the Polio vaccine and the Lead Researcher Dr. Jonas Salk; see here:

Title 1: Polio Vaccine

During the early 1950s, polio rates in the U.S. were above 25,000 annually; in 1952 and 1953, the U.S. experienced an outbreak of 58,000 and 35,000 polio cases, respectively, up from a typical number of some 20,000 a year, with deaths in those years numbering 3,200 and 1,400.^[62] Amid this U.S. polio epidemic, millions of dollars were invested in finding and marketing a polio vaccine by commercial interests, including Lederle Laboratories in New York under the direction of H. R. Cox. Also working at Lederle was Polish-born virologist and immunologist Hilary Koprowski of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, who tested the first successful polio vaccine, in 1950.^[8][41] His vaccine, however, being a live attenuated virus taken orally, was still in the research stage and would not be ready for use until five years after Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine (a dead-virus injectable vaccine) had reached the market. Koprowski’s attenuated vaccine was prepared by successive passages through the brains of Swiss albino mice. By the seventh passage, the vaccine strains could no longer infect nervous tissue or cause paralysis. After one to three further passages on rats, the vaccine was deemed safe for human use.^[39][63] On 27 February 1950, Koprowski’s live, attenuated vaccine was tested for the first time on an 8-year-old boy living at Letchworth Village, an institution for the physically and mentally disabled located in New York. After the child suffered no side effects, Koprowski enlarged his experiment to include 19 other children.^[39][64]

Jonas Salk
The first effective polio vaccine was developed in 1952 by Jonas Salk and a team at the University of Pittsburgh that included Julius Youngner, Byron Bennett, L. James Lewis, and Lorraine Friedman, which required years of subsequent testing. Salk went on CBS radio to report a successful test on a small group of adults and children on 26 March 1953; two days later, the results were published in JAMA.^[57] Leone N. Farrell invented a key laboratory technique that enabled the mass production of the vaccine by a team she led in Toronto.^[65][66] Beginning 23 February 1954, the vaccine was tested at Arsenal Elementary School and the Watson Home for Children in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.^[67]

Salk’s vaccine was then used in a test called the Francis Field Trial, led by Thomas Francis, the largest medical experiment in history at that time. The test began with about 4,000 children at Franklin Sherman Elementary School in McLean, Virginia,^[68][69] and eventually involved 1.8 million children, in 44 states from Maine to California.^[70] By the conclusion of the study, roughly 440,000 received one or more injections of the vaccine, about 210,000 children received a placebo, consisting of harmless culture media, and 1.2 million children received no vaccination and served as a control group, who would then be observed to see if any contracted polio.^[39] The results of the field trial were announced 12 April 1955 (the tenth anniversary of the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose paralytic illness was generally believed to have been caused by polio). The Salk vaccine had been 60–70% effective against PV1 (poliovirus type 1), over 90% effective against PV2 and PV3, and 94% effective against the development of bulbar polio.^[71] Soon after Salk’s vaccine was licensed in 1955, children’s vaccination campaigns were launched. In the U.S, following a mass immunization campaign promoted by the March of Dimes, the annual number of polio cases fell from 35,000 in 1953 to 5,600 by 1957.^[72] By 1961 only 161 cases were recorded in the United States.^[73]

Safety incidents

In April 1955, soon after mass polio vaccination began in the US, the Surgeon General began to receive reports of patients who contracted paralytic polio about a week after being vaccinated with Salk polio vaccine from Cutter pharmaceutical company, with the paralysis limited to the limb the vaccine was injected into. In response the Surgeon General pulled all polio vaccine made by Cutter Laboratories from the market, but not before 250 cases of paralytic illness had occurred. Wyeth polio vaccine was also reported to have paralyzed and killed several children. It was soon discovered that some lots of Salk polio vaccine made by Cutter and Wyeth had not been properly inactivated, allowing live poliovirus into more than 100,000 doses of vaccine. In May 1955, the National Institutes of Health and Public Health Services established a Technical Committee on Poliomyelitis Vaccine to test and review all polio vaccine lots and advise the Public Health Service as to which lots should be released for public use. These incidents reduced public confidence in polio vaccine leading to a drop in vaccination rates.^[76]

Source: Retrieved August 29, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine#1950%E2%80%931955

Is there an alternative to taking a vaccine?

Yes, there is herd or community immunity – where if enough people are vaccinated, like 70 percent – then the rest will automatically benefit from the protections.

But don’t get it twisted! The Caribbean member-states boast a Service industrial economy – tourism. To participate in this industry space will require compliance. Tourists – by air for resort-based stay-overs or cruise line passengers – will not want to expose themselves to possible infections.

Lastly, individuals can simply chose to exit societal functioning – a self-imposed quarantine; think: Leper Colony. These ones will have to take a seat – with a view – and watch life pass them by.

Is this what you want for yourself, your family and your community? If you chose NO VACCINE, you have that right. But your children may choose differently. Especially those children that you invested so selflessly to get advanced education – college graduates. Already, this population have a higher than normal abandonment rate in the region.

One report estimates 70 percent of college educated Caribbean citizens have fled and live abroad in the Diaspora:

Caribbean loses more than 70 percent of tertiary educated to Brain Drain
According to the analysis by the Inter-American Development Bank, the people in the “Caribbean 6” countries, including the Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad & Tobago have wasted money on educating their populations, especially tertiary (college) education. …

The Go Lean book posits that the Caribbean is the greatest address in the world. So why would people want to leave? The book answers by relating “push” and “pull” factors. Push, in that the dire economic conditions in the Caribbean homeland, plus governmental failures in response, caused responsible people to look elsewhere to fulfill their responsibilities and aspirations. On the other hand, pull factors came from the geo-political circumstances in the world. … Many West Indians were attracted by these better prospects in what was often referred to as the mother country. …

The Caribbean region features the world’s best address. The world should be beating down the doors to come to the Caribbean, not the Caribbean people beating down doors to get out.

“To be or not to be? That is the question” …

There must be a Pandemic Playbook for inclusion and participation in the COVID-19 vaccine race.

We must have a seat at the table or we will be “on the menu“.

The Go Lean roadmap promotes, plans and prepares for that inclusion and participation.

We want to start early in the participation cycle; the Go Lean roadmap calls for the full strategies, tactics and implementations for Research & Development. We also want full participation with Disaster (as in pandemic) Preparation & Response. These participations had already been embedded in this roadmap for reforming and transforming the Caribbean. These prime drivers are part of the vision for a Pandemic Playbook. These participations were presented as part of the New Guards for Homeland Security and Public Safety in the Caribbean region.

See the vision for Caribbean Research & Development (R&D) plus Disaster Preparation (and Response) as presented in previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19568	Big Hairy Audacious Goal – Need ‘Big Brother’ for Pandemics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19189	We have people with genius qualifiers to do Research & Development
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18243	The Need after Disasters? Regionalism – ‘How you like me now?’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16882	Exploring Medical School Opportunities for R&D and Economic Engines
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16817	The Call for Caribbean R&D to Battle Cancer
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15996	Good Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15310	Industrial Reboot – Trauma 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8943	Zika’s Drug Breakthrough – End-Game of an Playbook
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7449	‘Crap Happens’ – So What Now?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7822	A model for doing more Cancer R&D in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6580	On Guard for the Good, Bad & Ugly of Capitalism on Drug Patents
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4720	Lesson Learned – Mitigating SARS in Hong Kong
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2397	Lesson Learned – Monitoring and Mitigating Ebola
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1003	Painful and rapid spread of new virus – Chikungunya – in Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=554	Cuba already had Head-start with Drug R&D – Let’s do more

The Coronavirus COVID-19 virus is the master; we are all just slaves, doing the master’s bidding.

Wanna take back control?
Vaccine or bust!

We have no other choice but to contend with these challenges that come with participating in a vaccine program.

We need this strategy in our Pandemic Playbook. A requirement for Good Governance mandates that we capitulate with one or many of these vaccines that have been researched and developed; lives and livelihoods are stake. Next time – and there will be a next time – we need our own people doing the research & the development.

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments, citizens, doctors and patients – to participate in the global quest to eradicate this pandemic. This is the roadmap for making the Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work, heal and play. Jonas Salk did it with Polio … eventually; we can too. So our vision, this quest is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

ix. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management …

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. …

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accidence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accidence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

————————

Appendix – Hamlet’s Soliloquy

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

Source: Retrieved Aigust 29, 2020 from: https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/soliloquies/to-be-or-not-to-be/#:~:text=To%20be%20or%20not%20to%20be’%20is%20a%20soliloquy%20of,other%20characters%20can%20hear%20him.&text=Hamlet%20says%20’To%20be%20or,it’s%20worthwhile%20hanging%20in%20there.

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Pandemic Playbook – Only at the Precipice, Do People Change – ENCORE

Posted on August 28, 2020 in Ethos, Government, Industries, Social

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going – Old Adage

We have all heard that expression and knows what it means; but here is a different angle:

When things get critical, we cannot sit still or maintain the status quo.

Things have always been critical in the Caribbean, but right now, conditions are even more acute than our normal critical. The world is enduring the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic – every societal engine is shattered.

Our revenues are curtailed because the tourism-only economy is shattered.
Economic activities in the private sector are shattered due to the fact that there is no money.
Governments cannot function.
Public Health deliveries are imperiled … and overwhelmed.

Each Caribbean member-state, one after another, is suffering this disposition:

(Click to Enlarge)

In a research report by the University of the West Indies entitled “COVID-19 containment in the Caribbean: The experience of small island developing states” it related the intersection of Public Health measures and economic motivations. The May 25, 2020 report provides this summary:

Tourism is a dominant revenue stream for many Caribbean SIDS, with their reliance on international arrivals, particularly from Europe and North America. Governments were aware that border controls and closures would have severe economic effects. Weighed against this was the known fragility of regional health systems, and governments were keen to avoid their health systems being overwhelmed by a sharp increase in hospitalisations. Using the date of first confirmed case in each country as our indicator, Caribbean SIDS generally implemented NPIs (Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions) earlier than our chosen comparator countries. For movements into a country, the Caribbean on average implemented controls 23 days before their comparator counterparts. For control of movement within countries, the Caribbean implemented controls 36 days before comparators, and for control of gatherings the Caribbean on average implemented controls 30 days before comparator countries.

This report reveals the critical disposition of the Caribbean region; this is the dreaded precipice that the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean have always been on alert for. This actuality aligns with the observation that it is only at the precipice that people are willing to change.

The COVID-19 pandemic is creating the Perfect Storm to finally forge change in the region. This actuality forces us to compose a Pandemic Playbook. We need that now.

This commentary continues the Teaching Series for the month of August 2020 on the subject of Pandemic Playbooks – the need for them and the deficiency there of in the Caribbean. This is entry 4-of-6 from the movement behind the Go Lean book. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

Pandemic Playbook: Worldwide Leadership – Plan ==> Actual
Pandemic Playbook: Caribbean Inadequacies – Missing the Bubble Opportunities
Pandemic Playbook: Bahamas Example – ‘Too Little Too Late’
Pandemic Playbook: Only at the Precipice – ENCORE
Pandemic Playbook: To Be or Not To Be – COVID Vaccine
Pandemic Playbook: Success – Looks like New Zealand

The theme of Forging Change at the Precipice is very familiar to the Go Lean movement. In fact, there was an April 21, 2014 blog-commentary that featured almost the same title:

‘Only at the precipice, do they change’

Who is the “they”?

The target audience we want to change include the people and institutions (i.e. governments, banks, schools, etc.) of the region. We need both Top-Down and Bottoms-Up change.

See how this urgent-emergent crisis can finally usher in the reforms and transformations that Caribbean society have always needed. Let’s revisit that previous blog-commentary here-now:

=================

Go Lean Commentary – ‘Only at the precipice, do they change’

“Life imitating Art”; “Art imitating life”.

This is more than a cliché; it is also factual for describing how people finally get the will to change.

The movie The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) – demonstrates “Art imitating Life” – is a remake of the classic 1951 sci-fi film of the same name; see Trailer VIDEO in the Appendix below. These films are about an alien visitor and his giant robot counterpart who visit Earth.

The character Professor Jacob Barnhardt, in the 2008 version, was played by John Cleese, the English actor of some repute, known for his start with the Mighty Python players.

The counter character in this dialogue, Klaatu, was played by American mega-star Keanu Reeves.

The storyline proceeds that the character Klaatu is a spokesman that preceded the robot sent to destroy human life on earth. And thus this quotation from the Movie Dialogue:

Professor Barnhardt: There must be alternatives. You must have some technology that could solve our problem.

Klaatu: Your problem is not technology. The problem is you. You lack the will to change.

Professor Barnhardt: Then help us change.

Klaatu: I cannot change your nature. You treat the world as you treat each other.

Professor Barnhardt: But every civilization reaches a crisis point eventually.

Klaatu: Most of them don’t make it.

Professor Barnhardt: Yours did. How?

Klaatu: Our sun was dying. We had to evolve in order to survive.

Professor Barnhardt: So it was only when your world was threatened with destruction that you became what you are now.

Klaatu: Yes.

Professor Barnhardt: Well that’s where we are. You say we’re on the brink of destruction and you’re right. But it’s only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve. This is our moment. Don’t take it from us. We are close to an answer.

(Source: Internet Movie Database – Movie: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008). Retrieved 04/21/2014 – http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0012790/quotes)

This foregoing dialogue from the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) is symbolic of the crisis facing the Caribbean. The problem in the Caribbean is not technology, but rather the will to change. This is a consistent theme in the book Go Lean … Caribbean, it asserts that the changes necessary to preserve Caribbean heritage, culture and economies must first be preceded by an evolution in the community ethos. This pronouncement is as follows from Page 20:

The people of the Caribbean must change their feelings about elements of their society – elements that are in place and elements missing. This is referred to as “Community Ethos”, defined as:

“the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period.

This book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), a technocratic agency seen as the Caribbean’s best hope to avert the current path of disaster, human flight and brain drain, and grant the Caribbean a meaningful future for its youth.

This movie dialogue synchronizes with the exact details of the book. On Page 21, Go Lean presents a series of community ethos that must be adapted to forge change in the Caribbean. In addition, there are specific advocacies to:

Impact the Future (Page 26)
Impact Turn-Around (Page 33)
Impact the Greater Good (Page 37)
Grow the Economy (Page 151)
Preserve Caribbean Heritage (Page 218)

As a roadmap, this book provides the turn-by-turn guidance to optimize the Caribbean economy, security apparatus and governing engines.

With the assessment that many Caribbean states have lost more than 50% of their population to foreign shores (Pages 18 & 303), the region is now at that “precipice”.

“It is only at the precipice, do they change!”

Now is the time to lean-in to this roadmap for change, the book Go Lean … Caribbean, and the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. Our society/civilization is at the crisis point.

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————-

Appendix VIDEO – The Day The Earth Stood Still 2008 Official Trailer – https://youtu.be/rcSJ-6354-A

Published on Aug 5, 2012 – A remake of the 1951 classic sci-fi film about an alien visitor and his giant robot counterpart who visit Earth.
Keanu Reeves & Jennifer Connelly http://www.keanureeves.us/movie/the-d…

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Pandemic Playbook – Caribbean Inadequacies – Bahamas Example: ‘Too Little Too Late’

Posted on August 27, 2020 in Government, Locations, Planning, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

My thimble runneth over! – Derisive Pun based on the Biblical expression “My cup runneth over”.

Considering the reality of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic on our economic engines and Public Health deliveries, how do you answer:

Is your cup running over?

“My cup runneth over” is a quotation from the Hebrew Bible (Psalm 23:5) and means “I have more than enough for my needs”, though interpretations and usage vary. In desert cultures one is required by laws of hospitality to provide a drink to strangers. – Source: Wikipedia.

For many the answer can only be: My thimble runneth over!

(Check out this blog-site – http://mythimblerunnethover.blogspot.com/ – of a simple woman in Tennessee who feels that she is blessed just to have the simple things in life).

Consider the actuality of life in the Bahamas during this crisis; (this writer is a descendant of Freeport, Bahamas and observed-reported on the pandemic from Nassau):

Jobs are affected – most private businesses, including tourist resorts, are closed or curtailed.
Retail food prices increase because of higher inventory-carrying costs
Hospitals and public safety institutions are overwhelmed with COVID cases: testing, tracing, therapeutics and terminal patients.
Government Shutdown – No administrative processing, at all; no passport processing, no business registrations, etc.

This reporting describes the situation on the ground in the Bahamas as miserable. In fact, a Misery Index (inflation, unemployment and crime rate) would not do justice in depicting the despair in-country. Even Food Security is an issue; the government has had to implement a national feeding program. See a related story here, describing this program and the challenges:

Title: PM: Food assistance costs soar to $1 mil., more than 110k in need
By: Ava Turnquest
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis yesterday revealed the government is supporting the National Food Distribution Task Force with $1 million per week to assist more than 110,000 people.

Now entering its 11th week, Minnis advised the task force will move to erestructure aid into three categories: most, moderately and least vulnerable; with assistance to be distributed weekly, bi-weekly, and once a month, respectively.

The prime minister said 27,705 households have registered for assistance, to date.

“Access to food is a basic human right,” Minnis said during his national address on Sunday.

“Around the world, and here at home, people who have been self-sufficient their entire lives are now struggling to feed themselves and their families.

“Ensuring that our people in need are being helped is one of our leading priorities. We are investing heavily in food assistance.”

He continued: “I understand the unique situation so many of you find yourselves in, never imagining that you would ever have to seek assistance to have enough to eat.

“It is important, at this point in the program, to emphasize that first and foremost the Task Force is implementing a needs-based program.

“We have set out to help those in our communities who are the most vulnerable.”

Minnis said he asked the task force to reach out to smaller grocery stores so that arrangements can be made for food vouchers to be purchased from stores throughout the country.

“We would like neighborhood “Mom and Pop Shops” to participate in, and benefit from, this exercise with us,” he said.

During his address, Minnis noted the budget allocation of $16 million dollars for food assistance.

“Your government is delivering on this commitment,” he said.

“We are now providing $1 million dollars per week to the National Food Distribution Task Force for food assistance, to ensure those who are truly in need of food are being helped.

“Our Food Task Force is making every effort to preserve safety and dignity.”

Minnis noted an interaction with an individual who registered for assistance but later advised they were no longer in need.

“We are so grateful to people like Mr. Knowles, who I am told registered for food assistance but recently wrote back to the Task Force saying, “I am well and God has provided me with more than enough, so I don’t need any further assistance. Please provide it to those in need”.”

“Mr. Knowles’ noble action enables the Task Force to stretch the budget and help those who really need it most.”

Minnis added: “We thank Mr. Knowles and others like him, who understand that even in these difficult times, there are those who are in deep, deep need while others are not struggling as much.”

Source: Posted August 20, 2020; retrieved August 27, 2020 from: https://ewnews.com/pm-food-assistance-costs-soar-to-1-mil-more-than-110k-in-need

The Bahamas has a population of 340,000 (circa 2010) and yet 110,000 are being fed by the government.

Sad! $1 million per week for 110,000 people means $10 each … per week. Wow, the thimble runneth over!

One cannot wait until it rains to get an umbrella.

There should have been some disaster planning for this pandemic in advance – this is called a Pandemic Playbook. The Bahamas, and the whole Caribbean region, was alerted 5 years ago to be prepared for such a possibility; see here:

Lesson Learned – Mitigating SARS in Hong Kong – March 24, 2015
The people, institutions and governance of the Caribbean need to pay more than the usual attention to the lessons of SARS in Hong Kong [(2003], not just from the medical perspective, but also from an economic viewpoint.

During the “heyday” of the SARS crisis, travel and transport to Hong Kong virtually came to a grinding halt! Hong Kong had previously enjoyed up to 14 million visitors annually; they were a gateway to the world. The SARS epidemic became a pandemic because of this status. Within weeks of the outbreak, SARS had spread from Hong Kong to infect individuals in 37 countries in early 2003.^[3]

Can we afford this disposition in any Caribbean community?

This commentary continues the Teaching Series for the month of August 2020 on the subject of Pandemic Playbooks – the need for them and the current deficiency there of in the Caribbean. This is entry 3-of-6 from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

Pandemic Playbook: Worldwide Leadership – Plan ==> Actual
Pandemic Playbook: Caribbean Inadequacies – Missing the Bubble Opportunities
Pandemic Playbook: Bahamas Example – ‘Too Little; Too Late’
Pandemic Playbook: Only at the Precipice – ENCORE
Pandemic Playbook: To Be or Not To Be – COVID Vaccine
Pandemic Playbook: Success – Looks like New Zealand

Are we assigning blame to the Government of the Bahamas for being ill-prepared for the eventuality of this COVID-19 crisis?

Yes – Too Little; Too Late.

In fact, we assigned the same blame to all the member-states of the entire Caribbean. This is because governments have a certain expectation, responsibility and job description. This is referred in the Go Lean book – and in standard Good Governance – as the implied Social Contract; defined as follows:

“citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights”.

No Food Security on an island or within a chain of islands?

Wait! Why not just Go Fish?

Nope! The government’s playbook forbids standard fishing solutions among the archipelago of island. See this source here:

THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE BAHAMAS
GENERAL PROTOCOLS FOR
BOATS, YACHTS, PRIVATE CRAFT, RECREATIONAL CRAFT, CRUISING IN, PLYING THE WATERS OF, OR SHELTERING IN THE BAHAMAS OR SEEKING TO DO SO
DURING THE COVID-19 SHUT-DOWN
14 April, 2020

…
All foreign boats shall remain in place. There shall be no boating, cruising, fishing, day trips or other movement of any kind.
Boats belonging to Bahamians or Bahamian residents whose boats have a regular berth or place in The Bahamas shall comply with the following restrictions:
- …
- On no account shall Bahamian boats travel from one island of The Bahamas to another …
- …
- In order to minimize interpersonal contact and to respect the lockdown and curfew requirements, Bahamian boats shall not engage in boating, cruising, day trips or other movement. However, Bahamian boats may engage in subsistence fishing and local fishing for sustenance only (no sports fishing) at allowable times only and with all possible precautions (including Pars. (10) to (13) hereof), and only with the boat departing from and returning to the same location.

So unless you own your own boat – rare in the community – no subsistence fishing (for personal consumption) is allowed.

How about the land? Can Bahamians feed themselves “of the land”, as in subsistence farming?

Nope! Despite our foregoing assertion that “one cannot wait until it rains to get an umbrella”, the Bahamas Ministry of Agriculture is doubling-down in its desire to encourage Backyard Farming and Community Gardens; only now. See the full story here:

Title: Michael Pintard – Agriculture Minister – Relaunches Backyard Farming Programme
By: DENISE MAYCOCK, Tribune Freeport Reporter
AGRICULTURE and Marine Resources Minister Michael Pintard relaunched the Backyard Farming Programme on Friday, distributing 1,500 backyard kits here on Grand Bahama.

This comes a day after the announcement of an extension of the lockdown for another two weeks to August 19, to control the spread of the coronavirus infections on Grand Bahama.

Additionally, Mr Pintard revealed plans to launch community gardens throughout the island, in partnership with the five GB MPs. Land will be identified and cleared in each of the five constituencies to grow community gardens.

Mr Pintard said these programme initiatives are part of the food security programme, which is important, especially due to the global coronavirus pandemic.

“Again, we are in a difficult period and we believe that the potential for disruption in the food supply is real, given COVID-19,…” he said.

According to Minister Pintard, of the 1,500 kits assembled at the Department of Agriculture in Freeport, 100 will be distributed to each of the five MPs, and the remainder to churches, NGOs, and others.

He believes that “the revitalized” backyard farming programme will not only help the country in terms of its expenditure on food imports, but will also benefit residents.

“We believe it will enhance our ability to save money on our food bill, but also assist a number of persons in growing their farming operation as well. This is going to be accompanied by two other programmes: the distribution of a variety of seeds also on the island as a separate part of our backyard and community farming programmes. We have many more seeds that supply a minimum of 1,000 households,” Mr Pintard said.

The minister was pleased that all five MPs have agreed to support and participate, including Minister of State for Disaster Preparedness Iram Lewis, MP for Central Grand Bahama, Pakesia Parker-Edgecombe of West Grand Bahama and Bimini, Deputy Prime Minister Peter Turnquest of East Grand Bahama, and Frederick McAlpine, MP for Pineridge.

“We don’t believe that MPs are the only conduits by which kits should be distributed, and we want to make sure we have 1,000 kits, plus 1,000 additional seed packages distributed, through partnership with churches, NGOs, and others,” he said.

In terms of the community gardens, Mr Pintard noted that they will be clearing properties for community gardening in every constituency, and will also be partnering with local government on that initiative.

MP Pakesia Parker Edgecombe said she is very appreciative for the kits, which will be distributed in her constituency. “It is important for us to promote food sustainability. I know with the crisis we are going through many are asking about food security. What Mr Pintard and his ministry have been able to do with this initiative and this programme, is to (encourage people) to grow your own food and not spend so much at the supermarket,” she said.

MP Iram Lewis said he has been a strong advocate for backyard farming. “I was happy when the Minister decided to partner with us to take backyard farming to the next level where we form cooperatives in the community by having community gardens. All MPs have identified an area in their constituencies for these community gardens.”

Mr Lewis said a major anchor garden has been identified on South Mall Drive where there will be a seedling nursery and a production area, and weekly Farmers’ Market.

“We really appreciate this gesture,” he said. We are happy it is officially launched and will go a long way, with respect to food security and putting healthy produce that we grow ourselves on our table,” he said.

Tutorial videos and workshop for persons interested in backyard and community gardening is available on the Ministry’s website. Anthony Hutcheson will also provide lectures and tips on how to plant and care for the garden.

Source: Posted Friday August 7, 2020; retrieved August 27, 2020 from: http://www.tribune242.com/news/2020/aug/07/michael-pintard-relaunches-backyard-farming-progra/

Yes, indeed! The assessment is conclusive: Too little; Too late!

In contrast, the full strategies, tactics and implementations for Food Security and Disaster Preparation had already been embedded in a roadmap for reforming and transforming the Caribbean; this is the purpose of the Go Lean book. This is a vision of a Pandemic Playbook. Rather than “waiting for it to rain and then go looking for an umbrella”, the Go Lean roadmap presents a plan for New Guards for Homeland Security and Public Safety on Day One / Step One of the ascension of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

See the vision for Caribbean Food Security plus Disaster Preparation (and Response) as presented in previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

Food Security

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19725	Keep the Change: Being ‘Basic’ about Basic Needs
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18836	Food Security – Big Chicken 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18834	Food Security – A Lesson in History: Free Trade Agreements & Food
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18831	Food Security – Planning and Opportunities for the Cruise Line industry
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18828	Food Security – A Plan for Temperate Foods in the Tropics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18817	Food Security – Bread Basket 101
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13184	Industrial Reboot – Frozen Foods 101

Disaster Preparation and Response

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20052	Natural Disasters: The Price of Paradise
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19568	Big Hairy Audacious Goal – Need ‘Big Brother’ for Pandemics
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18243	The Need after Disasters? Regionalism – ‘How you like me now?’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18182	Disaster Relief: Helping, Not Hurting
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17500	Continuity of Business: Lessons on Recovery from System Failures
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15996	Good Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15886	Industrial Reboot – Planning for Disasters with Reinsurance
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8943	Zika’s Drug Breakthrough – End-Game of an Playbook
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7449	‘Crap Happens’ – So What Now?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4720	Lesson Learned – Mitigating SARS in Hong Kong
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4308	911 – Emergency Response: System in Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2397	Lesson Learned – Monitoring and Mitigating Ebola
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1003	Painful and rapid spread of new virus – Chikungunya – in Caribbean

Here’s the major problem: the whole Caribbean – not just the Bahamas – is in competition with the rest of the world, whether we want to be or not. In fact, the original motivation of the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean was to execute a Regional Battle Plan to dissuade emigration – to lower the Push-Pull factors that lead to the Brain Drain.

We are losing that Battle.

Some countries – that we compete against – are stepping up and filling the “cups of sustenance” for their citizens and residents, while here in the Caribbean, we are falling short. This is evident in the Bahamas, as related in the foregoing, as they are only able to provide some basic food support for some citizens, as a rate of $10 per person per week. Yes, the competition is doing so much more; see here:

Canada is providing families $950 every 2 weeks for the duration of the pandemic, plus freezing rents & mortgages.
Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/24/fact-check-canadas-pandemic-relief-isnt-broad-claimed/5493166002/
The US provided a one-time $1,200 Stimulus Check to all their tax-payers – plus $500 per child.
The UK government’s emergency fiscal measures – including paying 80% of the salaries of furloughed workers, higher welfare spending, tax cuts and grants for small companies – will cost around 104 billion pounds. The government has also announced 330 billion pounds in state-guaranteed loans.
As of May 2020, the Euro Zone’s (which includes the Caribbean stakeholders of France and The Netherlands) total fiscal response to the epidemic is tallied at 3.2 trillion Euros. Of that total some 2.7 trillion Euros comes from national fiscal stimulus and government guarantees for companies to keep them in business. On top of that, 100 billion Euros of money jointly borrowed by the EU is to go to a scheme to subsidize wages so firms can cut working hours, not jobs.
Source: https://www.fm-magazine.com/news/2020/may/global-coronavirus-pandemic-relief-efforts-infographic.html

For us in the Caribbean in general, and in the Bahamas in particular, can you see the “Too Little; Too Late” dilemma? Do you see the “Push”? Do you see the “Pull”?

Brain Drain – Where the Brains Are – February 25, 2020
For us in the Caribbean, it is important for us to understand the full width-and-breadth of Brain Drains. Every month, the movement behind the Go Lean book present a Teaching Series on a subject germane to Caribbean life. For this February 2020, our focus is on the machinations that lead to Brain Drain. This is entry 1 of 5 for this series, which details that every community everywhere has people with brains – or those with genius qualifiers – it is just the opportunities that is missing in many communities. So there is the need to analyze the “Push and Pull“ factors that causes our genius-qualified-people to abandon this homeland and then identify the strategies, tactics and implementations that we must consider in order to abate this bad trend.

Firstly, the “Push and Pull” reasons are identified in the Go Lean book as follows:

“Push” refers to people who feel compelled to leave, to seek refuge in a foreign land. “Refuge” is an appropriate word; because of societal defects, many from the Caribbean must leave as refugees – think LGBT, Disability, Domestic-abuse, Medically-challenged– for their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

“Pull”, on the other hand refers to the lure of a more prosperous life abroad; many times our people are emigrating based on a mirage of “greener pastures”; but many times, the “better prospect” is elusive for the first generation.

The Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is a real threat and crisis for our Caribbean region; we have no choice but to contend with it. Our competition, with the rest of the world is also real; we have to contend with that as well.

We need a better Pandemic Playbook; we need Good Governance. We need to do more! Individually, our member-states are crippled – we cannot fill a cup; only drip into a thimble. We must leverage the full region; we need a Single Market for the Caribbean now more than ever. See how the EU Single Market – our role model – is micro-managing the economic-fiscal fall-out in the Appendix VIDEO below.

This crisis would be a terrible thing to waste …

We urge all Caribbean stakeholders – governments, citizens, institutions, trading partners and Diaspora – to come together, to convene, collaborate and confederate to forge a better response to this global pandemic crisis. This is how we can make the homeland a better place to live, work and play. Our people have choices and options; they can, and have abandoned us and fled to more prosperous (resilient) lands abroad. Let’s wake up, fight back and compete for our people.

Despite the challenges, if we unify, we can compete – Yes, we can – it is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. …

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxxiii. Whereas lessons can be learned and applied from the study of the recent history of other societies, the Federation must formalize statutes and organizational dimensions to avoid the pitfalls of communities like … . On the other hand, the Federation must also implement the good examples learned from developments/communities like … .

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

—————–

APPENDIX VIDEO – COVID-19: EU’s plan to save the economy – https://youtu.be/KyRKU2DePO0

EURACTIV
Posted April 20, 2020 – The European Commission estimates the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak could be greater than the financial crisis in 2008.

In order to keep the economy running, the EU executive introduced flexibility for funds and national expenditure, member states approved a safety net of liquidity for countries, workers and companies involving the ESM, EIB, and Commission SURE, and EU leaders agreed on the need to work out a recovery plan for the block in the coming months.

EURACTIV looked into the details of the EU’s economic response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

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Pandemic Playbook – Caribbean Inadequacies: Missing the Bubble Opportunities

Posted on August 26, 2020 in Government, Industries, Social, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

Welcome to the … Bubble.

This is the only business model – in the leisure industry – that can find success right now.

For the record, we are addressing the concept of a travel bubble (think isolation bubble):

What is a “travel bubble?”
Travel bubbles, also called travel bridges or corona corridors, do away with that waiting period for a select group of travelers from certain countries where the coronavirus has been contained. “In a ‘travel bubble’ a set of countries agree to open their borders to each other, but keep borders to all other countries closed. So people can move freely within the bubble, but cannot enter from the outside,” says Per Block, an Oxford University researcher in social mobility and methodology. “The idea is to allow people additional freedom without causing additional harm.” Travel bubbles are an extension of one of Block’s research specialties —social bubbles, where people expand their quarantine zones to include more people they consider safe. Block is one of the authors of an Oxford study that suggests social bubbles could be an effective strategy to alleviating coronavirus isolation, although the findings have not yet been peer-reviewed. – Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/five-things-know-about-travel-bubbles-180974983/

The foregoing says “the findings have not yet been peer-reviewed”. Well, the review is in; according to the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the US, the “Bubble” works. See the experiences here:

2020 NBA Bubble
The 2020 NBA Bubble, also referred to as the Disney Bubble^[1][2] or Orlando Bubble,^[3][4] is the isolation zone at Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando, that was created by the National Basketball Association (NBA) to protect its players from the COVID-19 pandemic during the final eight games of the 2019–20 regular season and throughout the 2020 NBA playoffs. Twenty-two out of the 30 NBA teams were invited to participate, with games being held behind closed doors at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex and the teams staying at Disney World hotels.^[5]

The bubble is a $170 million investment by the NBA to protect its 2019–20 season, which was initially suspended by the pandemic on March 11, 2020.^[6] On June 4, the NBA approved the plan to resume the season at Disney World, inviting the 22 teams that were within six games of a playoff spot when the season was suspended. Although initially receiving a mixed reaction from players and coaches,^[7] the teams worked together to use the bubble as a platform for the Black Lives Matter movement.^[8]

After playing three exhibition scrimmages inside the bubble from July 22 to 28, the invited teams each began playing the eight additional regular season games to determine playoff seeding on July 30.^[9][10] The 2020 NBA playoffs then began on August 17, and the 2020 NBA Finals is scheduled to begin on September 30. – Source: Retrieved August 26, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_NBA_Bubble

—————

VIDEO – The NBA and Tyler Perry provide Bubble Models – https://youtu.be/WGnP4SfHpZo

Posted August 16, 2020 – Story – With pro basketball teams and staff living in isolation, actors and crew quarantining at Tyler Perry’s Atlanta studios, and families forming self-isolating “pods” for the sake of their children during the coronavirus pandemic, many are working hard to keep protective social bubbles from bursting. Lee Cowan reports.

Despite the threats of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, the Bubble is working! The economic engine of the NBA is restored-protected; that means the preservation of a $8.76 Billion business enterprise; see the related chart here:

The COVID-19 pandemic is also wreaking havoc on the economy for the Caribbean – where our primary economic driver is leisure travel; no people are consuming vacations nor cruises. We have no Bubble to mitigate this pandemic.

There is an over-arching need for mitigation. See the outstanding COVID-19 cases in the Caribbean (CariCom member-states) as of today:

Source: https://moodle.caribdata.org/lms/pluginfile.php/4951/mod_resource/content/0/26Aug2020%20Regional%20Briefing%20.pdf

We need to look-listen-and-learn from this Bubble strategy; we are missing out!

This commentary is the continuation of the Teaching Series for the month of August 2020 on the subject of Pandemic Playbooks. This is entry 2-of-6 from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean. There is the need for Travel Bubbles in our Playbook. According to the foregoing VIDEO, it works for the NBA, for Tyler Perry Studios and it can work for the 30 member-states of the Caribbean.

“It is possible to beat COVID at it’s own game”.

Yes, we can! The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

Pandemic Playbook: Worldwide Leadership – Plan ==> Actual
Pandemic Playbook: Caribbean Inadequacies – Missing the Bubble Opportunities
Pandemic Playbook: Bahamas Example – ‘Too Little Too Late’
Pandemic Playbook: Only at the Precipice – ENCORE
Pandemic Playbook: To Be or Not To Be – COVID Vaccine
Pandemic Playbook: Success – Looks like New Zealand

This is our objective. Yes, we can!!! With a Pandemic Playbook, it is conceivable, believable and achievable to restore our society and economic engines.

In order to accomplish our objectives, there is the need for this Pandemic Playbook for the Caribbean as a whole and for the individual member-states. The playbook must include Bubbles. Imagine this vision:

An all-inclusive hotel resort with controlled entry-exit. Imagine too, all staff on the property being tested regularly and limited to the property for a few weeks contiguously; lastly, the visitors (tourists) only enter the Bubble after qualified testing.

Wait?! Controlled Access and guaranteed testing?! This is exactly what the CruiseLlines intend to do to restart their economic engine. Remember, these cruise ships cost $Billion; this investment is wasted if they are not transporting passengers and providing leisure. They are crying out for a Bubble strategy.

See their Cruise Bubble plans as portrayed in the Appendix below.

How about land-based resorts?

We strongly urge Caribbean hotels and resorts to copy the NBA model. In fact, while Orlando has privilege of facilitating the NBA end-of-season and playoffs, other communities can (and should) propose solutions for other leagues.

Imagine NCAA Basketball (National Collegiate Athletic Association) …

… there is the annual Battle for Atlantis (Nassau/Paradise Island) tournament; see more here:

The Battle 4 Atlantis is an early-season college basketball tournament that takes place in late November of each year, at Atlantis Paradise Island on Paradise Island in Nassau, Bahamas, on the week of the US holiday of Thanksgiving. The games are played in the Imperial Arena, a grand ballroom which is turned into a basketball venue.^[1] The tournament is known for being the richest Division I men’s early-season college basketball tournament. Schools are awarded $2 million in exchange for their participation in the men’s event.^[2]

In 2020, a women’s tournament will be added, also featuring eight teams. It will immediately precede the men’s tournament.^[3]

The tournament is promoted by Bad Boy Mowers, and is televised by ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU.^[4]Source: Retrieved August 26, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_4_Atlantis

Can “we” continue this for 2020, but this time in a Bubble, with these modification:

Every player, coach and support staffer must be continuously tested negative to participate.
Increase field from 4 teams to 32; modelling the World Cup by FIFA.
8 Groups of 4 teams each; during Group Play, each team plays each other in the group; guaranteeing 3 games.
Elimination Rounds continue with the 16 top Teams, then 8, then 4, then 2, then Champion.
Facilitate e-Learning for all College Students in the Bubble – they are student athletes.
Allow fans, family and media to participate if they comply with the protocols.
Perfect the model and repeat through the Caribbean with more 32 Team combinations.

There you have “it”: Caribbean deficiencies averted; economic opportunities exploited.

The Go Lean book and roadmap provides a glimpse of a new Caribbean that is ready to explore all the opportunities in the Sports eco-system. This plan was published as a Playbook … 7 years ago, far before there was a COVID-19 virus.

Luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity.

The CU/Go Lean roadmap presented a new Caribbean preparedness that is ready, willing and able to deliver economic optimization and Good Governance.

The CU structure allows for a Sports Management functionality – Sports & Culture Administration – within the Cabinet-level agency, the Department of State (Page 81). The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt the needed community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. We need these types of efficiencies in our Pandemic Playbook. Consider the specific plans, excerpts and headlines from the book on Page 229 entitled:

10 Ways to Improve Sports

1	Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market Embrace the advent of the Caribbean Single Market & Economy initiative of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. This will allow for the unification of the region of 30 member-states into a single market of 42 million people and a GDP exceeding $800 Billion (per 2010). This market size and multi-lingual realities allows for broadcasting rights with SAP-style language options for English, Spanish, French and Dutch. This makes the region attractive for media contracts for broadcast rights, spectrum auctions and sports marketing. The Olympics have demonstrated that sports can be profitable “big business”, and a great source of jobs and economic activity. The CU will copy the Olympic model, and harness the potential in many other sporting endeavors, so as to make the region a better place to live, work and play.
2	CU Games
3	Fairgrounds as Sport Venues
4	Regulate Amateur, Professional & Academically-Aligned Leagues
5	Establish Sports Academies
6	“Super” Amateur Sport Association Promote All-Star tournaments (pre-season and post-season) for Amateur (School and Junior) Athletics Associations winners. This includes team sports (soccer, basketball), school sports (track/field) and individual sports (tennis, golf, etc.).
7	Regulator/Registrar of Scholar-Athletes – Assuage Abandonment
8	Sports Tourism The CU will promote tournaments and clinics to encourage advancement in certain sports. These tournaments are aimed at the foreign markets (US, Canada, Europe, Central and South America) so as to generate sports-tourism traffic.
9	*Professional Agents and Player Management Oversight (a la Bar/Lawyer Associations)*
10	*Impanel the CU Anti-Doping* Agency**

This Go Lean book presents that the organizational structure to deliver a Pandemic Playbook must be in place first – embedded at the onset of the CU Trade Federation – Day One / Step One. Then we will be ready to get “lucky” and avail ourselves of all the profits that Sports eco-system can deliver. We have detailed that profit-potential before; consider this sample of previous blog-commentaries that focused on this industry-opportunity:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18392	Refuse to Lose – A Lesson from Sports
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14527	March Madness 2018 – The Business Model of NCAA Basketball
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=14160	The Business Model of Watching the SuperBowl … and Commercials
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12259	The Business Model of the College World Series
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11939	Bad Models: Rio Olympics & Athens Olympics; Same Failure
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=11287	Creating a Sports Business Legacy in the Pro-Surfing Eco-system
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10820	Miami Sports Eco-System: Dominican’s ‘Home Away from Home’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8272	Lebronomy Fulfilled – Economic Impact of the Return of the NBA Great
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6464	Sports Business Role Model – ‘WWE Network’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3244	Sports Business Role Model – espnW
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2171	Sports Business Role Model – Turn On the SEC Network
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1943	The Future of Golf; Vital for Tourism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1446	Caribbean Players and Impact in the 2014 FIFA World Cup
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1214	Smart Business Model: The Art & Science of Temporary Stadiums
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1148	Franchise values in NBA Basketball? A “Bubble” or Real? Appears Real!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=318	Collegiate Sports in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=273	Among the 10 Things We Want from the US: Sports Professionalism
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=60	Caribbean’s Olympics: A Dream or A Nightmare?

We want sports! We want profit; We want Good Governance. Most assuredly, we want a Pandemic Playbook so that we can cope with all changes: good, bad and ugly.

Welcome to the ugly of COVID-19.

It’s not too late, we can still reform and transform our Caribbean societal engines (economic, security and governance) to better respond-rebuild-recover from emergencies like this pandemic. This is how we can make our Caribbean homeland a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. …

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accidence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

xxxi. Whereas sports have been a source of great pride for the Caribbean region, the economic returns from these ventures have not been evenly distributed as in other societies. The Federation must therefore facilitate the eco-systems and vertical industries of sports as a business, recreation, national pastime and even sports tourism – modeling the Olympics.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

——————-

Appendix – COVID-19 testing ‘very likely’ when Royal Caribbean returns to cruising, executive says
By: Curtis Tate

Royal Caribbean is considering coronavirus testing as part of its plan to resume sailing, a company executive said during a quarterly earnings presentation Monday.

The company has paused its cruise operations since March and hopes to resume them in November, if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lifts its no-sail order, which is set to expire at the end of September. The U.S. cruise industry has voluntarily extended its sailing suspension through Oct. 31. Though company executives gave no firm date for the resumption of cruises, one said testing would be key.

“It’s very likely that testing will occur,” said Michael Bayley, CEO of Royal Caribbean International.He offered no additional details, including whether testing would be for crew members and passengers or to which cruise lines testing would apply.

Royal Caribbean Group owns four cruise brands: Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Silversea and Azamara.

Royal Caribbean canceled 1,545 sailings since March 13, including all of its sailings in the second quarter. The company posted a $1.3 billion loss for the quarter and expects to post a loss for the third quarter and for the year.

One tangible impact: Royal Caribbean Group was supposed to receive five new ships by the end of 2021 but now will take delivery of only three: Silver Moon in October, Odyssey of the Seas, in early 2021 and Silver Dawn late in 2021.

COVID-19 impacts: Cruise lines are shedding ships from their fleets. Here’s what it means for cruisers

Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas was supposed to make its debut next year as the world’s largest cruise ship, but its arrival is on hold indefinitely because of the pandemic.

The ship will be able to carry 6,000 passengers and 2,200 crew members.

Royal Caribbean Group’s fleet includes 62 ships, with another 16 on order.

Jason Liberty, the company’s chief financial officer, said it was looking at selling older ships in the fleet.

“We are evaluating opportunities to sell ships,” he said, while not specifying which ones.

The company reported bookings for 2021 comparable with years past, in a sign that demand for cruising could return. Bayley noted that younger people and loyalty customers were driving sales.

“I’m hopeful we’re going to see a lot of pent-up demand,” he said. “People certainly want to have a vacation next year.”

In the near term, Liberty said, the joint Healthy Sail Panel of Royal Caribbean Group and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings is looking at every facet of safety, from whether ultraviolet lights can effectively kill the virus to how to improve meal service.

Some of the proposed changes might prove costly, such as whether to modify ships to promote social distancing. And such recommendations could smack into the evolving nature of how to best fight the coronavirus, including how soon a vaccine might be on the way.

The company could resume sailings in China and Australia before November, but executives made no commitments in the quarterly earnings presentation Monday.

Ultimately, the prevalence of the virus would determine when sailings can resume, Liberty said.

“It’s a real puzzle,” he said. “There are so many variables to consider.”

Contributing: Morgan Hines, USA TODAY

Source: USA Today – Posted August 10, 2020; retrieved August 26, 2020 from: https://www.fayobserver.com/story/travel/cruises/2020/08/10/royal-caribbean-cruises-likely-have-covid-19-testing-upon-return/3302471001/

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Pandemic Playbook – Worldwide Leadership: Plan ==> Actual

Posted on August 25, 2020 in Government, Tactical

Go Lean Commentary

“If the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a pit” – The Bible; Matthew 15:14

This is such graphic language – a word picture – that it is obvious what it means. Even still, the encyclopedic reference is as follows:

“The blind leading the blind” is an idiom and a metaphor in the form of a parallel phrase; it is used to describe a situation where a person who knows nothing is getting advice and help from another person who knows almost nothing. Wikipedia

The world is embattled with the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. There is the need for good leadership in contending with this crisis. (Yet still, the US President is symbolic of a “Blind Guide” leading the world into ruin. See this bad American example as portrayed in the Appendix D VIDEO below).

The leadership being lamented here is only the political leadership. Yes, good political leadership is definitely lacking.

But alas, this is a Public Health crisis. So how is the Public Health leadership in this crisis?

Answer: Good enough! The problem is the blind political leadership driving the Public Health officials.

On the surface, the world’s Public Health leadership appears to be technocratic (and “Spot On”). See more on the motives and momentum of the primary Public Health and infectious disease agency, the World Health Organization, in the Appendix A below. That’s on the global front; for a Caribbean focus, we have dictates from these two regional organizations:

The US’s Centers of Disease Control (CDC) – see details in Appendix B below
Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) – see details in Appendix C below.

Now more than ever, we need to understand these foregoing organizations – WHO, CDC and PAHO. These entities are responsible for any plan that “we” may have for pandemic protections. Yes, these players present their playbooks. In fact, these organizations have been addressed in previous blog-commentaries from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean … Caribbean; as in this one from May 23, 2014:

Painful and rapid spread of new virus – Chikungunya – in Caribbean
[The book] Go Lean … Caribbean therefore constitutes a change for the Caribbean. This is a roadmap to consolidate 30 member-states of 4 different languages and 5 colonial legacies (American, British, Dutch, French, Spanish) into a the [Caribbean Union] Trade Federation [(CU)] with the tools/techniques to bring immediate change to the region to benefit one and all member-states. This includes the monitoring/tracking/studying the origins of common and emerging viruses. This empowered CU agency will liaison with foreign entities with the same scope, like the Pan American Health Organization, US’s Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

There is the plan and there is the actual.

The Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic is creating havoc in many countries around the world: killings hundreds of thousands and disrupting economic engines. But there appears to only be ONE problem with this Crisis Management: Political Leadership stemming out of the US. In particular, the political leadership of the federal government under Donald Trump; and other countries following Trump’s lead, i.e. Brazil.

But some have refused to follow that blind guide; see this related story here that shows how the State of California opposed the political-directed policies issued by the politically-directed CDC when they recommended looser Coronavirus testing and travel protocols. See here:

Title: California officials oppose CDC over looser coronavirus testing and travel protocols
By: COLLEEN SHALBY, PHIL WILLON
New guidance on coronavirus testing and travel issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drew strong pushback from California officials Wednesday.

The CDC is no longer recommending a 14-day quarantine for travelers. After the government issued a mandatory quarantine for travelers arriving in the U.S. from Wuhan, China, in February, the guidance that travelers isolate for two weeks was adopted by several states and encouraged by local officials as a key tool in mitigating the spread of the novel coronavirus — especially among people who may be asymptomatic.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday said he disagrees with the CDC’s new guidance and insisted that it will not impact California.

“I don’t agree with the new CDC guidance. Period. Full stop,” he said. “We will not be influenced by that change.”

Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said those traveling to places with high transmission rates should be mindful of the potential to contract the virus and expose others to it. She also reminded residents that L.A. County is a COVID-19 hot spot and traveling from the community could present a risk to outsiders.

“My message really is: Whether you’re flying or staying home, you need to be mindful that we have to reduce our transmission,” she said. “The way we do that is by reducing exposure to other people.”

The CDC also is no longer advising those without symptoms to be tested, even if they have been in contact with an infected person. Ferrer, however, said the county’s recommendation still stands: Anyone who has been exposed to someone with the virus should get tested and self-quarantine.

“This is particularly important if a public health official or doctor tells you to get tested,” she said.

Newsom said Wednesday that California had signed a contract with an East Coast medical diagnostics company to more than double the number of coronavirus tests that can be processed in the state, eventually expanding capacity to roughly a quarter of a million tests a day.

Under the $1.4-billion agreement, a new Santa Clarita lab will be able to provide testing results within two days, far quicker than the average five- to seven-day processing times offered by other labs.

The expanded testing capacity and quicker results will increase the ability of health officials to quickly isolate people who test positive for the virus and to track down and test those who came in contact with them, Newsom said, steps that are crucial to slowing the spread of COVID-19.

The new lab is expected to begin processing coronavirus tests in November. When the lab is at full capacity in March and processing as many as 150,000 tests per day, the cost per test is expected to be a little more than $30, Newsom said. Medicare and Medi-Cal pay about $100 per test, and the average overall cost varies from $150 to $200 per test, state officials said.

Reducing testing costs not only will save money for workers and their employers but also lower costs for Medi-Cal, the federally subsidized insurance program for low-income Californians, the governor said.

“This is exactly what the federal government should be doing,” Newsom said. “Had the federal government done this some time ago, you wouldn’t see average costs [per] test at $150 to $200 — costing the taxpayers, quite literally, tens of billions of dollars, costing employers billions and billions of dollars, costing the health plans billions of dollars as well.”

The news comes as California fights to keep its case count and hospitalization numbers down. The state’s 14-day average for positive tests is at 6.1%, and hospitalizations over that same period have decreased by 17%, Newsom said Wednesday.

In L.A. County, officials reported 58 additional COVID-19 deaths Wednesday and 1,642 additional cases. Those numbers are lower than what was reported just a month ago, but higher than Tuesday’s daily case count, which dipped below 1,000 for the first time since early June.

The drop in infections was reported the same day that the California Department of Public Health reported the county’s 14-day average case rate had dropped below 200 per 100,000 residents. That threshold would allow elementary schools to apply for waivers to hold in-person classes, but on Wednesday, Ferrer said the county is not ready to make that move.

Officials also reported that 1,200 pregnant women and girls between the ages of 14 and 52 have tested positive for the virus and two have died from complications. Of the 193 babies who were tested at birth, eight were positive. This marks the first time the county has reported positive infections among newborn babies.

The number of cases in L.A. County, which totals more than 233,000, surged in June after the county rapidly reopened various sectors of the economy following several months of closures. Activity related to Memorial Day weekend and informal gatherings also contributed to an increase in cases throughout the state.

In addition, mass protests over the death of George Floyd erupted during that time, although officials have said that those outdoor demonstrations did not contribute to the massive surge in new coronavirus infections. Still, it is impossible for officials to trace cases that originate in public spaces.

The statewide surge in cases continued after the July 4 weekend, followed by a reporting backlog error that sent daily infections into record territory.

Those numbers have just begun to decline in recent weeks, as has the number of hospitalizations in California.

The state’s seven-day average for positive coronavirus test results is 5.7%. That is below the country’s overall average, which according to Johns Hopkins University is 6.1%.

But maintaining that progress is not guaranteed if social distancing practices are relaxed, officials warn. In an effort to continue slowing the spread of the virus, some counties are offering to pay workers to stay home and isolate if they contract the virus.

Sacramento County health officials are working on a proposal to offer a stipend of about $12.50 per hour to workers who contract the virus but cannot work from home. The payout amounts to about $1,000 for two weeks.

Los Angeles County, which accounts for the bulk of the state’s more than 682,000 infections and nearly 12,500 deaths, has not introduced any wage-replacement plans similar to those in the Bay Area. But the county is offering residents who complete an interview with a contact tracer a $25 gift certificate.

Source: Posted and retrieved August 26, 2020 from: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-08-26/l-a-county-daily-covid-19-cases-dip-below-1-000-for-first-time-since-early-june

Related: How a rush to reopen drove Los Angeles County into a health crisis

This subject matter relates to Good Governance and the delivery of the implied Social Contract; which is defined as when …

“Citizens surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the State in exchange for protection of remaining natural and legal rights”.

This commentary starts a Teaching Series for the month of August 2020 on the subject of Pandemic Playbooks – the need for them and the deficiency there of here in the Caribbean. This is entry 1-of-6 from the movement behind the Go Lean book. The other commentaries in the series are cataloged as follows:

Pandemic Playbook: Worldwide Leadership – Plan ==> Actual
Pandemic Playbook: Caribbean Inadequacies – Missing the Bubble Opportunities
Pandemic Playbook: Bahamas Example – ‘Too Little Too Late’
Pandemic Playbook: Only at the Precipice – ENCORE
Pandemic Playbook: To Be or Not To Be – COVID Vaccine
Pandemic Playbook: Success – Looks like New Zealand

This need for a Pandemic Playbook is implied in this Go Lean roadmap to elevate Caribbean life. There is the need to reboot, reform and transform all societal engines including: economics, security and governance. The actuality of a pandemic and related health care deliveries impact all three of these societal engines. This is what is meant by the term New Guards.

The Go Lean book and roadmap provides a glimpse of a new Caribbean that is ready with these New Guards. These are not foreigners. These are fellow Caribbean brothers and sisters, representing the 30 member-states in the region. They are ready, willing and able to help deliver Good Governance.

The CU structure allows for an Emergency Management functionality within the Homeland Security Department. This CU version is modeled on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the US. See this sample as related in a previous blog-commentary …

Good Governance: Stepping Up in an Emergency
… that agency’s emergency response is based on small, decentralized teams trained in such areas as the National Disaster Medical System (NDMS), Urban Search and Rescue (USAR), Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT), Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT), and Mobile Emergency Response Support (MERS).

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society. We need an efficient Pandemic Playbook to contend with this kind of emergency in every community. In addition to all the directions for optimizing the societal engines, there is one advocacy in the book for fostering a better Emergency Management eco-system. This includes Disaster Planning, Response & Recovery. Consider the specific plans, excerpts and headlines from the book on Page 196 entitled:

10 Ways to Improve Emergency Management

1	Lean-in for the Caribbean Single Market This treaty allows for the unification of the region into one market, thereby expanding to an economy of 30 countries, 42 million people and a GDP of over $800 Billion (according to 2010 metrics). This treaty calls for a collective security agreement for the Caribbean member-states so as to prepare-respond to natural disasters, emergency incidents and assuage against systemic threats against the homeland. The CU employs the professional arts and sciences of Emergency Management to spread the costs, risks and premium base across the entire region and refers to more than just medical scenarios, but rather any field of discipline that can impact the continuity of a community or an individual. The CU also has the direct responsibility for emergencies in the Exclusive Economic Zone and Self Governing Entities.
2	Trauma Centers The CU envisions 6 strategically placed Level-1 trauma centers, and a series or lower level centers, placed throughout the region to service the entire population. The goal will be to ensure that every citizen is within a 1 hour transport from the closest trauma center. The trauma center may be physically located within a hospital campus, or stand-alone, but will be governed (and funded) by the CU and not the member-state’s public health system. (See Appendix ZM on Page 336).
3	Airlift / Sealift – Getting there by Helicopters, Airplanes and Boats
4	Mobile Surgical Centers and Tele-Medicine The CU will deploy specialized trailers that function as surgical operating theaters, recovery rooms and diagnostic laboratories. The mobile hospitals will include attendant functions for pharmaceuticals, power, and communications. The communications allow for tele-medicine tactics to engage specialized clinicians that may be remote. These trailers can be positioned at sites of emergency events to better respond after disasters or when normal infrastructure is compromised.
5	Epidemiology – Viral & Bacterial Rapid Response Due to the systemic threat, epidemic response and disease control will be coordinated at the CU Cabinet level, by the Department of Health. In the event of an outbreak, the CU will assume jurisdiction of the emergency “event” with the authority to commandeer local resources, quarantine populations and blockade transport to/from the affected area.
6	Mobile Command Centers
7	Intelligence Gathering & Analysis
8	Casualty Insurance Plans – Reinsurance “Sidecars”
9	Volunteer Fire – Rescue Brigades
10	ITIL – Information Technology Infrastructure Library

This Go Lean book presents that the organizational structure to deliver on a Pandemic Playbook must be embedded in the Emergency Management apparatus of the CU Trade Federation on Day One / Step One of the ascension of this Go Lean roadmap. This is part of the Homeland Security mandate; this is Good Governance. Many more details have been presented in other previous blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=20052	Natural Disasters: The Price of Paradise
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=19409	Coronavirus: ‘Clear and Present’ Threat to Economic Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=17500	Continuity of Business: Learning from Systems’ failures
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=15310	Industrial Reboot with Trauma Centers
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13746	Failure to Launch – Security: Caribbean Basin Security Dreams
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12949	Charity Management: Grow Up Already!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10771	Logical Addresses – ‘Life or Death’ Consequences
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10566	Funding the Caribbean Security Pact
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8943	Zika’s Drug Breakthrough – End-Game of an Playbook
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7896	The Logistics of Disaster Relief
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7449	‘Crap Happens’ – So What Now?
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7327	Zika, the Virus – A 4-Letter Word
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4720	Lesson Learned – Mitigating SARS in Hong Kong
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4308	911 – Emergency Response: System in Crisis
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2397	Lesson Learned – Monitoring and Mitigating Ebola

We want Good Governance and we want a Pandemic Playbook so that we can “break glass in case of an emergency”.

It IS an emergency now!

So we must reform and transform our Caribbean governing engines and Homeland Security apparatus. We must be able to better respond-rebuild-recover from emergencies like natural disasters and pandemics.

This commitment would fulfill the delivery of the Social Contract. This is how we can make the Caribbean a better homeland to live, work, heal and play. The people and institutions of the region are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap; this plan is conceivable, believable and achievable. 🙂

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. …

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes … can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

—————–

Appendix A – World Health Organization (WHO)

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health.^[1] The WHO Constitution, which establishes the agency’s governing structure and principles, states its main objective as “the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health.”^[2] It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with six semi-autonomous regional offices and 150 field offices worldwide.

The WHO was established by constitution on 7 April 1948,^[3] …

The WHO’s broad mandate includes advocating for universal healthcare, monitoring public health risks, coordinating responses to health emergencies, and promoting human health and well being.^[7] It provides technical assistance to countries, sets international health standards and guidelines, and collects data on global health issues through the World Health Survey. Its flagship publication, the World Health Report, provides expert assessments of global health topics and health statistics on all nations.^[8] The WHO also serves as a forum for summits and discussions on health issues.^[1]

The WHO has played a leading role in several public health achievements, most notably the eradication of smallpox, the near-eradication of polio, and the development of an Ebola vaccine. Its current priorities include communicable diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS, Ebola, malaria and tuberculosis; non-communicable diseases such as heart disease and cancer; healthy diet, nutrition, and food security; occupational health; and substance abuse.

…

2019–20 COVID-19 pandemic
The WHO faced criticism from the United States’ Trump administration while “guid[ing] the world in how to tackle the deadly” COVID-19 pandemic.^[199] The WHO created an Incident Management Support Team on 1 January 2020, one day after Chinese health authorities notified the organization of a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown etiology.^{[199][200][201]} On 5 January the WHO notified all member states of the outbreak,^[202] and in subsequent days provided guidance to all countries on how to respond,^[202] and confirmed the first infection outside China.^[203] The organization warned of limited human-to-human transmission on 14 January, and confirmed human-to-human transmission one week later.^{[204][205][206]} On 30 January the WHO declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern,^[207][208] considered a “call to action” and “last resort” measure for the international community.^[209] The WHO’s recommendations were followed by many countries including Germany, Singapore and South Korea, but not by the United States.^[199] The WHO subsequently established a program to deliver testing, protective, and medical supplies to low-income countries to help them manage the crisis.^[199]

While organizing the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and overseeing “more than 35 emergency operations” for cholera, measles and other epidemics internationally,^[199] the WHO has been criticized for praising China’s public health response to the crisis while seeking to maintain a “diplomatic balancing act” between China and the United States.^{[201][210][211][212]} Commentators including John Mackenzie of the WHO’s emergency committee and Anne Schuchat of the US CDC have stated that China’s official tally of cases and deaths may be an underestimation. David Heymann, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said in response that “China has been very transparent and open in sharing its data… and they opened up all of their files with the WHO.”^[213]

Opposition from the Trump Administration
On 14 April 2020, United States President Donald Trump pledged to halt United States funding to the WHO while reviewing its role in “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.”^[214] The United States had paid half of its annual assessed fees to the WHO as of 31 March 2020; it would ordinarily pay its remaining fees in September 2020.^[215] World leaders and health experts largely condemned President Trump’s announcement, which came amid criticism of his response to the outbreak in the United States.^[216] WHO called the announcement “regrettable” and defended its actions in alerting the world to the emergence of COVID-19.^[217] Trump critics also said that such a suspension would be illegal, though legal experts speaking to Politifact said its legality could depend on the particular way in which the suspension was executed.^[215] On 8 May 2020, the United States blocked a vote on a U.N. Security Council resolution aimed at promoting nonviolent international cooperation during the pandemic, and mentioning the WHO.^[218] On 18 May 2020, Trump threatened to permanently terminate all American funding of WHO and consider ending U.S. membership.^[219] On 29 May 2020, President Trump announced plans to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO,^[220] though it was unclear whether he had the authority to do so.^[221] On 7 July 2020, President Trump formally notified the UN of his intent to withdraw the United States from the WHO.^[222]

…

Source: Retrieved August 25, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization

—————–

Appendix B – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is a national public health institute in the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services,^[2] and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.^[3]

Its main goal is to protect public health and safety through the control and prevention of disease, injury, and disability in the US and internationally.^[4] The CDC focuses national attention on developing and applying disease control and prevention. It especially focuses its attention on infectious disease, food borne pathogens, environmental health, occupational safety and health, health promotion, injury prevention and educational activities designed to improve the health of United States citizens. The CDC also conducts research and provides information on non-infectious diseases, such as obesity and diabetes, and is a founding member of the International Association of National Public Health Institutes.^[5]

…

COVID-19
The first confirmed case of COVID-19 was discovered in the U.S. on January 20, 2020.^[84] But widespread COVID-19 testing in the United States was effectively stalled until February 28, when federal officials revised a faulty CDC test, and days afterward, when the Food and Drug Administration began loosening rules that had restricted other labs from developing tests.^[85] In February 2020, as the CDC’s early coronavirus test malfunctioned nationwide,^[86] CDC Director Robert R. Redfield reassured fellow officials on the White House Coronavirus Task Force that the problem would be quickly solved, according to White House officials. It took about three weeks to sort out the failed test kits, which may have been contaminated during their processing in a CDC lab. Later investigations by the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services found that the CDC had violated its own protocols in developing its tests.^[86][87]

In May 2020, The Atlantic reported that the CDC was conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests — tests that diagnose current coronavirus infections, and tests that measure whether someone has ever had the virus. The magazine said this distorted several important metrics, provided the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic, and overstated the country’s testing ability.^[88]

In July 2020, the Trump administration ordered hospitals to bypass the CDC and instead send all COVID-19 patient information to a database at the Department of Health and Human Services. Some health experts opposed the order and warned that the data might become politicized or withheld from the public.^[89] On July 15, the CDC alarmed health care groups by temporarily removing COVID-19 dashboards from its website. It restored the data a day later.^[90][91][92]

…

Source: Retrieved August 25, 2020 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention

—————–

Appendix C – Pan American Health Organization

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is an international public health agency working to improve health and living standards of the people of the Americas. It is part of the United Nations system, serving as the Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization and as the health organization of the Inter-American System. It is known in Latin America as the OPS or OPAS (Spanish: Organización Panamericana de la Salud; Portuguese: Organização Pan-Americana da Saúde).

Description
PAHO has scientific and technical expertise at its headquarters, in its 27 country offices, and its three Pan American centers, all working with the countries of the Americas in dealing with priority health issues. The health authorities of PAHO’s Member States set PAHO’s technical and administrative policies through its Governing Bodies. PAHO Member States include all 35 countries in the Americas; Puerto Rico is an Associate Member. France, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland are Participating States, and Portugal and Spain are Observer States.

The Organization’s essential mission is to strengthen national and local health systems and improve the health of the peoples of the Americas, in collaboration with Ministries of Health, other government and international agencies, nongovernmental organizations, universities, social security agencies, community groups, and many others.

PAHO promotes universal health coverage and universal access to health and strengthening of health systems based on primary health care strategies. It assists countries in fighting infectious diseases such as malaria, cholera, dengue, HIV and tuberculosis as well as the region’s growing epidemic of noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes. PAHO engages in technical cooperation with ministries of health and facilitates coordination with other sectors to promote health in all policies.
…

History
The organization was founded in December 1902. It was originally called the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau.^[3]:125 In 1949, PAHO and WHO signed an agreement making PAHO the American Regional Office (AMRO) of WHO. Today the usual phrasing is “Regional Office for the Americas”.

…

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_American_Health_Organization

—————–

APPENDIX D VIDEO – COVID-19: How Did The US Get It So Wrong? – https://youtu.be/ltJV3IMP-Dg

CNA Insider
America has the highest number of #COVID19 infections and deaths in the world. Why was its response to the global pandemic too late and too little? From President Donald Trump’s re-election bid, to the US Centre For Disease Control & Prevention’s failure to roll out testing earlier, and the lack of PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) for healthcare workers, the programme #Insight looks at the issues.

The full episode: https://youtu.be/ZK3PYcnHZBQ

For more, SUBSCRIBE to CNA INSIDER! https://www.youtube.com/cnainsider

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This Day 100 Years Ago – Women’s Right To Vote

Posted on August 18, 2020 in Ethos, Planning, Social

Go Lean Commentary

Why does it take so long …

… for people to reform and transform Civil Rights?

Why?

Basic Fact in life: Nobody gives up power unless they are forced to!

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” – Frederick Douglass

On this day exactly 100 Years Ago, American Women were finally able to obtain the power they were demanding; with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution; they finally succeeded …

The Nineteenth Amendment (Amendment XIX) to the United States Constitution prohibits the states and the federal government from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States on the basis of sex. Initially introduced to Congress in 1878, several attempts to pass a women’s suffrage amendment failed until passing the House of Representatives on May 21, 1919, followed by the Senate on June 4, 1919. It was then submitted to the states for ratification. On August 18, 1920, Tennessee was the last of the necessary 36 ratifying states to secure adoption. The Nineteenth Amendment’s adoption was certified on August 26, 1920: the culmination of a decades-long movement for women’s suffrage at both state and national levels. – Source: Wikipedia.

So after the journey for women’s voting rights started in 1848, their destination was finally reached 70 years later. In a previous blog-commentary from the movement behind the 2013 book Go Lean…Caribbean, the historicity of Women in Politics was detailed and we see exactly how long gender empowerment took to manifest here in the Caribbean region:

Click to Enlarge

While the US granted women citizens their Right to Vote in 1920, the rest of the region took up to 41 years later for these same basic rights to be accorded. It is evident that despite the fact that women in one jurisdiction won the right to vote, that same right was denied right “next door”. This is sad! We have always needed all women’s participation in the democratic process; we have needed their vote and their voice; and even their leadership. This was further explained in that previous blog from November 14, 2015:

The Caribbean member-states, despite their differences, (4 languages, 5 colonial legacies, terrain: mountains -vs- limestone islands), have a lot in common. Some similarities include:

Lack of equality for women compared to men.

The government is the largest employer.

So the reality of Caribbean life is that while the governmental administrations are not fully representative of the populations, they are responsible for all societal engines: economy, security and governance.

This is bad and this is good! Bad, because all the “eggs are in the same basket”. Good, because there is only one entity to reform, reboot and re-focus.

So how do we seriously consider reforming government in the Caribbean?

Start anew.

Start with politics and policy-makers.

Start with the people who submit for politics, to be policy-makers.

Start with people who participate in the process.

Considering the status-quo of the region – in crisis – there is this need to start again. But this time we need more women.

There is so much for us to learn from the historicity of August 18, 1920. Though women fought and bled to gain these rights, they still needed the approval of men to secure these rights for them. See how this was dramatized in this AUDIO-Podcast here:

AUDIO-PODCast – Suffrage isn’t Simple – https://play.acast.com/s/historythisweek/suffrageisntsimple

History.com Today: August 18, 1920 – In the third row of the legislative chamber in Nashville, Tennessee, 24 year-old Harry Burn sits with a red rose pinned to his lapel. He’s there to vote on the 19th Amendment, which will determine if women nationwide will be able to vote. Burn’s shocking, unexpected vote, “yes,” will turn the tides of history, even though women had already been voting for decades before 1920, and many women still won’t be able to vote for decades to come. So, what did the 19th Amendment actually do for women in America? And what, on this 100th anniversary, does it show us about our own right to vote today?

What a fine story – what a takeaway! But wow; that woman needed her young (24-year-old) son to validate her citizenship value and vote to allow her to have the same rights that was automatically assured for him. Too sad! This is not right!

Martin Luther King is quoted to have said that the “arc of history is long and it bends towards justice”. Therefore, it is imminent that all oppressed people will eventually rise up and demand their rights to equality. This lesson was related in a previous Go Lean commentary:

So “change is gonna come“; it would be wiser for opponents to just concede that fact. This is a lesson for the Caribbean to learn from military strategies: if combatants know that the end result of a fight would be imminent defeat, they should not fight; rather they should just concede and negotiate favorable terms of surrender.

Let’s consider gender equality … there have actually been real ‘Battles of the Sexes’, where the end results have benefited women – to the victor goes the spoils.

… we need those empowerments in the Caribbean too; we need our local opposition to concede – without a battle – that they cannot win in abusing others.

The subject of fostering gender equality is not new to this Go Lean movement. See this sample list of previous blog-commentaries that have elaborated on this subject of women, their vote and their voice:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=18503	Learn about the ‘Most Powerful Woman in the World’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16944	Women Empowerment – Accepting Black Women ‘As Is’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16942	Women Empowerment – Power of ‘Her’ Wallet
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=16940	Women Empowerment – We need “Sheroes” in Facts and Fiction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=13063	Gender Equity without a ‘Battle of the Sexes’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=12035	Life imitating Art – Lean-in for ‘Wonder Woman Day’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8306	Women Get Ready for New Lean-In Campaign
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8155	Bahamas Referendum Outcome: Impact on the ‘Brain Drain’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6937	Women in Politics – Yes, They Can!
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6836	Role Model – #FatGirlsCan – Empowering Women
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6434	‘Good Hair’ and the Strong Black Woman

The Go Lean movement have always advocated for the full participation of girls and women in Caribbean society. We look forward to that participation in our economic, security and governing engines. Yes, women in business; yes, women in the military and police forces; and yes, women in government.

Yes, we can …

100 years and still only mild progress. We must do better – transformations do not readily manifest for us; our orthodoxy is stubborn:

i.e. The Bahamas did not grant the same right to vote until 1961.

We must reboot from this bad orthodoxy.

The world is not going backwards, forward only. We know where we need to be and what we need to do. So let’s just do it! This is how “Advanced Democracies” or “Matured Societies” work – always reforming; always transforming; trying and striving to be better and do better.

Doing better?! We know exactly how! This is the purpose of the Go Lean book and roadmap; it provides guidance and action plans on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to help women to impact our homeland. This is the why, the what and the how for making the Caribbean region a better place to live, work and play.

We urge everyone to lean-in to this roadmap. 🙂

————-

Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between the member-states and CU federal agencies.

The Go Lean book provides 370-pages of turn-by-turn instructions on “how” to adopt new community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to execute so as to reboot, reform and transform the societal engines of Caribbean society.

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

xi. Whereas all men are entitled to the benefits of good governance in a free society, “new guards” must be enacted to dissuade the emergence of incompetence, corruption, nepotism and cronyism at the peril of the people’s best interest. The Federation must guarantee the executions of a social contract between government and the governed.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xiv. Whereas a free market economy can be induced and spurred for continuous progress, the Federation must install the controls to better manage aspects of the economy: jobs, inflation, savings rate, investments and other economic principles. Thereby attracting direct foreign investment because of the stability and vibrancy of our economy.

xxi. Whereas the preparation of our labor force can foster opportunities and dictate economic progress for current and future generations, the Federation must ensure that educational and job training opportunities are fully optimized for all residents of all member-states, with no partiality towards any gender or ethnic group. The Federation must recognize and facilitate excellence in many different fields of endeavor, including sciences, languages, arts, music and sports. This responsibility should be executed without incurring the risks of further human flight, as has been the past history.

Sign the petition to lean-in for this roadmap for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation.

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