Monday, March 30, 2020

State Should Tighten Leaky Confinement Fast

Because we’ve wasted precious time, our public health system isn’t where it ought to have been – there are also several reports of frontline staff working in difficult conditions – and the virus is spreading at quite a rapid pace. The state should compensate for some of the blunders it made by having a free pack sent to the other 346,500 or so households so everybody has something to eat and stays inside for two weeks to slow down the advance of covid-19. The police/SMF/SSU and enough government employees can take care of the packing and distribution to every single household. Gas trucks should follow to exchange any cylinder for one that’s full (this will cost government only Rs80m). Staff should take down comments heard during the distribution so the system is improved quickly and other problems are solved.

How much would a healthy and reasonable pack cost? Given that we’re leaving the lobster thermidor out am guessing Rs1,500 to Rs2,000 should do the trick. So in all we’re talking around Rs850m here. Pretty cheap to help stem the infection and delay or avoid the collapse of our public health system. And this will be financed by more sustainable tax rates

Thursday, March 19, 2020

An Open Letter to Minister Dookun-Luchoomun

Dear Minister,

I read with interest on March 17th that your Ministry had made provisions for schooling for grades 7 to 9 to continue online using 994 videos and 70 questionnaires through the student support programme (SSP) should Covid-19 force us to shutdown schools.

As we already have our first three cases of that virus I am guessing the SSP will be extended to the other grades of the secondary curriculum. Considering that there might not be a lot of good news* coming our way for the next little while and that students could be at home for weeks if not months I would like to make an appeal that you allow all the students who didn’t get 5 credits at the SC level recently to go through into Lower 6 – which for now will be their homes – and have access to the relevant parts of the SSP. This will help soften the blow of the pandemic.

Thank you.
Best,
Sanjay Jagatsingh


*What Covid-19 Will Do to Mauritius, S. Jagatsingh, March 2020.