The co­nun­drum and con­tro­ver­sies re­gard­ing this coun­try’s ac­qui­si­tion of COVID-19 vac­cines seem to have been put to bed this week when truces were called, fruit­ful dis­cus­sions were had and pledges to de­liv­er the much-need­ed med­i­cine came from two of this coun­try’s long-stand­ing al­lies.

It was in­deed wel­comed news for a pop­u­la­tion worn out by the con­tin­u­ous back and forth and ex­haust­ed by the year-long preva­lence of a dis­ease that is in no hur­ry to go away.

But in the same week where so much head­way was made in re­la­tion to vac­ci­nat­ing the pop­u­la­tion, it was quite dis­heart­en­ing to learn that COVID-19 cas­es are on the rise again.

On Wednes­day, 38 pos­i­tive cas­es were re­port­ed, the high­est rise in cas­es re­port­ed so far for the year. In fact, the last time the coun­try record­ed cas­es over 30 was back in De­cem­ber last year. There were more 21 cas­es re­port­ed yes­ter­day for a three-day pe­ri­od of test­ing this week.

While the sta­tis­tics may have been shock­ing to some, it came as no sur­prise to those heed­ing the warn­ings be­ing giv­en by the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram and oth­er se­nior health of­fi­cials. Over the last two weeks, they have been not­ing an uptick in cas­es and the trou­bling be­hav­iour of some cit­i­zens who are show­ing ze­ro re­gards for the health reg­u­la­tions, their lives and the well-be­ing of oth­ers fac­ing the ef­fect of this pan­dem­ic.

Of­fi­cials have spo­ken point­ed­ly about cit­i­zens in Coun­ty Ca­roni, who are flout­ing the reg­u­la­tions by pa­tro­n­is­ing bars and at­tend­ing church ser­vices while ex­pe­ri­enc­ing flu-like symp­toms, prompt­ing health of­fi­cials to em­bark on the painstak­ing task of con­tact trac­ing in­volv­ing some 900 peo­ple.

But the re­cal­ci­trant be­hav­iour seen in Coun­ty Ca­roni is al­so be­ing ob­served else­where, with some con­gre­gat­ing in large groups with no masks on or wear­ing masks im­prop­er­ly.

On­ly yes­ter­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith ap­pealed to the na­tion to ad­here to the health pro­to­cols as cit­i­zens get set to com­mem­o­rate two aus­pi­cious oc­ca­sions on the re­li­gious cal­en­dar­—Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tists Lib­er­a­tion Day and East­er. CoP Grif­fith al­so ad­vised that he will no longer be grant­i­ng per­mis­sion for march­es, demon­stra­tions and vig­ils and re­mind­ed that gath­er­ings should not ex­ceed more than ten peo­ple.

While the onus rests not on­ly on cit­i­zens to abide by the health reg­u­la­tions, it al­so falls to church lead­ers, bar own­ers, em­ploy­ers and oth­ers to play their part in turn­ing away those who ap­pear to be ill from their premis­es; en­sur­ing the num­ber of peo­ple in an en­closed area re­mains low and de­mand­ing that masks be worn prop­er­ly.

But the po­lice must al­so es­ca­late their en­force­ment of those cit­i­zens who con­tin­ue to will­ful­ly flout the reg­u­la­tions, giv­en the ris­ing num­ber of COVID cas­es.

More­over, this al­so high­lights the need for health of­fi­cials to make test­ing manda­to­ry for those who may have been ex­posed to it. News ear­li­er this week that some peo­ple have re­fused test­ing even af­ter be­ing iden­ti­fied as com­ing in­to con­tact with pos­i­tive pa­tients is wor­ry­ing, as it begs the ques­tion of whether we re­al­ly know the true num­ber of cas­es in the coun­try.

COVID-19, ac­cord­ing to the ex­perts, is not go­ing away any­time soon. Our vig­i­lance should not dis­ap­pear ei­ther.