KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The First Wave Move­ment (FWM) yes­ter­day em­barked on a march from Point Fortin to Port-of-Spain to protest the COVID-19 mea­sures in­tro­duced by the Gov­ern­ment.

The march start­ed in front of the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal, where med­ical staff are over­whelmed with COVID-19 pa­tients, with FWM leader Umar Ab­dul­lah, Ed­ward Mood­ie, and physi­cian Dr Ra­jiv Seereer­am lead­ing a group of about 20 peo­ple. They were head­ed to Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

Ab­dul­lah, who claimed the Gov­ern­ment is dis­guis­ing to­tal­i­tar­i­an­ism as democ­ra­cy, said: “We have evil men walk­ing the cor­ri­dors of our Par­lia­ment, and we are here to push back, we are here to take back our coun­try. Our cit­i­zens in this coun­try, their rights have been vi­o­lat­ed.

“We have lost all our rights, our free­dom of choice. We have lost free­dom of move­ment in this coun­try. We are say­ing that this is un­con­sti­tu­tion­al, and this Gov­ern­ment has to re­tract their po­si­tion on all these is­sues.”

The group is protest­ing against mea­sures such as the safe zones which grant peo­ple vac­ci­nat­ed against COVID-19 ac­cess to bars, din­ing at eater­ies, gyms, cin­e­mas and wa­ter parks.

Ab­dul­lah is call­ing for that arrange­ment to be can­celled be­cause it en­cour­ages seg­re­ga­tion.

While safe zones con­tin­ue to op­er­ate de­spite low rev­enue, he said those busi­ness­es are par­tic­i­pat­ing in their demise.

“Very soon, they would not be able to con­tin­ue to op­er­ate and be able to ex­ist,” he warned.

He said the FWM learnt that pri­vate in­sti­tu­tions sup­port­ed the Gov­ern­ment nar­ra­tive and warned them against en­cour­ag­ing seg­re­ga­tion as it is al­so caus­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion in the labour force where com­pa­nies are man­dat­ing vac­ci­na­tion as a con­di­tion of em­ploy­ment.

He said Gov­ern­ment must clear­ly state to busi­ness­es that they should stop these poli­cies. While reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies and glob­al health bod­ies show that COVID-19 vac­cines pre­vent se­vere ill­ness and death in most peo­ple, Ab­dul­lah said Gov­ern­ment lied to cit­i­zens.

“Those per­sons who have tak­en the in­jec­tion, this Gov­ern­ment has be­trayed you. How are you tak­ing that?

“They told you that when you take this jab, you will not get sick, you will not end up in the hos­pi­tal, you will not die,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Health, 90.9 per cent of peo­ple hos­pi­talised with COVID-19 in the par­al­lel health­care sys­tem are un­vac­ci­nat­ed.
Mood­ie, leader of the South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group, called on Gov­ern­ment, Op­po­si­tion and re­li­gious lead­ers to state their po­si­tion on the sit­u­a­tion in T&T.

He said cit­i­zens were laugh­ing at Venezuela not too long ago but are now liv­ing in a failed state. He said cit­i­zens were deep in pover­ty, so Gov­ern­ment should not im­ple­ment the im­pend­ing prop­er­ty tax.

Seereer­am, a mem­ber of Re­spon­si­ble Par­ents T&T, said the group stands against manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tion for chil­dren.

He scoffed at news from the med­ical fra­ter­ni­ty and the me­dia that chil­dren were dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ed by COVID-19, claim­ing those re­ports were un­qual­i­fied and on­ly served to cre­ate fear and pan­ic among par­ents.

He said COVID-19 vac­cines did not un­der­go enough years of test­ing for use in chil­dren.