Haiti in dispersed order facing the coronavirus

Text by: Marie Normand Follow

Frantz Duval, editor-in-chief of the Haitian daily Le Nouvelliste, describes in his editorial of this Thursday, March 19, the disorganization of the authorities faced with the threat of the Covid-19. Haiti, he explains, risks being "the first very weak country that the virus will meet on its way".

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For Frantz Duval, Haiti is on the " short list of countries that are playing their future heads or tails ". This is also the title of his editorial . The editor-in-chief of the newspaper Le Nouvelliste regrets that the political authorities of his country, like those of Brazil and Mexico, " have not yet fully grasped the threat of the Covid-19 ".

Other countries, he explains, have been slow to react, like the United Kingdom and the United States . “ But they have the means to react. Large means ”. Haiti, plagued by a political, economic and social crisis, has still not officially resumed relations with donors.

On Sunday March 15, the government announced the closure of the border with the Dominican Republic and the elimination of almost all flights to and from abroad. However, links with the United States, where cases are increasing, are still ensured.

"Each institution, each family decides alone what to do next"

What about other measures? " All around us in America, without proven cases, some countries have applied the two remedies that protect Covid-19: prevention and containment, " writes Frantz Duval. “ In Haiti , we dawdle. We are waiting, ”he judges. " The orchestras, the embassies, the international schools, the restaurants, the cultural institutions, each family, decide alone what to do next ".

In built-up areas, public transport works normally. Only the banks, according to the journalist, have started to ask their customers to line up in the queues. No awareness program either, except for operations scheduled for Saturday March 21 and 28 .

" Of course, it is not possible today to buy millions of masks, thousands of artificial respirators, build hospitals or train hundreds of doctors and nurses, " agrees Frantz Duval.

“ We don't have the time, the money, or even the intention to do it. There remain the two remedies, almost free, that are abundant information and preventive confinement. We hesitate to use it. Even the government decision announced on Wednesday evening to ban the rara, these popular festivals in the provinces, cannot be explained when we know that life continues unhindered in the big overcrowded cities ", judges the journalist.

An attitude that recalls, according to him, the attitude of the Haitian authorities in 2010: " Months before the earthquake , despite predictions and alerts from experts, no Haitian official had established a plan for what to do in the event of a disaster nor to ward off the worst ”.

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