The Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) has re­stat­ed its de­mand that the Min­istry of Health clar­i­fies the re­port­ing of COVID-19 death sta­tis­tics.

In a re­lease signed by NATUC Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, Michael An­nisette, the trade union body main­tains its po­si­tion that the Min­istry “should pro­vide an ex­plic­it and stan­dard­ized de­f­i­n­i­tion for a COVID-19 re­lat­ed cause of death e.g. COVID-19 pneu­mo­nia, sep­sis or mul­ti­ple or­gan fail­ure.”

The full text of the state­ment from NATUC, fol­lows…

The Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre (NATUC) hav­ing not seen a re­sponse from any­one with re­spect to the state­ments made by the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO) at the me­dia brief­ing on 29.12.21, is forced, once again, to pick up the fight on be­half of the work­ing class of Trinidad and To­ba­go and de­mand that the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer comes clean and give the gen­er­al pub­lic the valid and straight­for­ward sta­tis­tics con­cern­ing Covid-19 and Covid-19 re­lat­ed deaths in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

NATUC want to make it clear that we are not doc­tors, nor do we have doc­tors in NATUC, but we have com­mon sense, which was made be­fore books, and we have spir­i­tu­al guid­ance.

The CMO has tac­it­ly ad­mit­ted that the Min­istry of Health (MOH) has fal­tered in set­ting a case de­f­i­n­i­tion for a COVID-19 fa­tal­i­ty. As it stands per­sons count­ed as covid deaths in­clude

1)         Any pa­tient who is ad­mit­ted to hos­pi­tal and suc­cumbs to a non-covid pathol­o­gy (e.g. heart at­tacks, stroke, can­cer, kid­ney or liv­er fail­ure and sur­gi­cal emer­gen­cies) and who in­ci­den­tal­ly test pos­i­tive for covid at or short­ly af­ter the time of death.

2)         Any de­ceased per­son in the com­mu­ni­ty that in­ci­den­tal­ly tests pos­i­tive for covid even if their med­ical his­to­ry is not con­sis­tent of covid.

3)         Any COVID free pa­tient who is ad­mit­ted to a hos­pi­tal for an­oth­er con­di­tion and even­tu­al­ly de­vel­ops COVID on the ward and sub­se­quent­ly dies from ei­ther a covid or non-covid re­lat­ed com­pli­ca­tion.

COVID-19 has a >95% sur­vival rate, as such many if not most of the pa­tients who die from oth­er con­di­tions and who in­ci­den­tal­ly test pos­i­tive for COVID-19 should not be in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the COVID-19 sta­tis­tic un­der the as­sump­tion that they “would have died” from COVID.

NATUC wish­es to reem­pha­sise that the MOH should pro­vide an ex­plic­it and stan­dard­ized de­f­i­n­i­tion for a COVID-19 re­lat­ed cause of death e.g. COVID-19 pneu­mo­nia, sep­sis or mul­ti­ple or­gan fail­ure. The pri­ma­ry cause of death record­ed on the death cer­tifi­cate should cor­rob­o­rate with a rel­e­vant med­ical his­to­ry from a fam­i­ly mem­ber. For ex­am­ple a de­ceased per­son who ex­pe­ri­enced symp­toms as­so­ci­at­ed with a heart at­tack, and whose his­to­ry is con­sis­tent with chest pains, should not be clas­si­fied as COVID-19 if their ca­dav­er tests pos­i­tive for the virus.

A pos­i­tive PCR test at the time of death does not sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly clas­si­fy as a COVID fa­tal­i­ty be­cause, giv­en the rate of trans­mis­sion in the com­mu­ni­ty, many per­sons are ex­pect­ed to be in­ci­den­tal­ly pos­i­tive for COVID-19 even though COVID-19 did not cause their death. 

Fur­ther­more, the MOH should pub­lish the non-COVID fa­tal­i­ties, along­side the dai­ly COVID deaths, so the pub­lic can de­ter­mine if the base­line deaths that were oc­cur­ring pri­or to COVID are now sub­sumed in­to the COVID-19 sta­tis­tic. Pri­or to covid, 34 per­sons died every day in Trinidad; what is the present dai­ly death rate in Trinidad?

Med­ical Seg­re­ga­tion De­mands In­con­tro­vert­ible, Em­pir­ic Da­ta

The gov­ern­ment’s safe zone pol­i­cy which be­gan on 11.10.21, is built on the no­tion that vac­ci­nat­ed per­sons are un­like­ly to con­tract or trans­mit covid, whilst un­vac­ci­nat­ed per­sons are a dis­pro­por­tion­ate threat to oth­ers. How­ev­er in­dis­putable em­pir­ic da­ta should be pro­vid­ed if the gov­ern­ment wish­es to pro­ceed with a pro­gram of med­ical seg­re­ga­tion that sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly ex­cludes un­vac­ci­nat­ed per­sons from pub­lic spaces, em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, gov­ern­ment of­fices and from pub­lic din­ing or en­ter­tain­ment venues.

The MOH still fails to re­port or per­haps, wil­ful­ly omits the num­ber of dai­ly COVID cas­es oc­cur­ring amongst the vac­ci­nat­ed. These vac­cine “break­through” cas­es are ex­pect­ed to ac­count for many out­breaks in work­places and house­holds, how­ev­er a fail­ure to iden­ti­fy and re­port such cas­es to the pub­lic has en­cour­aged peo­ple in­to a false sense of se­cu­ri­ty af­ter vac­ci­na­tion. Vac­ci­nat­ed per­sons, who are sig­nif­i­cant­ly at risk of in­fec­tion were em­bold­ened to un­mask and frat­er­nize in­ti­mate­ly in bars, restau­rants, and oth­er places of leisure. This has like­ly con­tributed to the surge in cas­es which oc­curred af­ter the safe zone ini­tia­tive was launched on the 11th Oc­to­ber 2021.

Go­ing for­ward the MOH must trans­par­ent­ly re­port the dai­ly num­ber of COVID-19 break­throughs in­volv­ing vac­ci­nat­ed in­di­vid­u­als so that cit­i­zens can de­ter­mine if vac­ci­na­tion is prov­ing suc­cess­ful in pre­vent­ing the trans­mis­sion of COVID-19 and if the ra­tio­nale be­hind seg­re­gat­ing cit­i­zens us­ing the safe zones and qua­si-safe zones is jus­ti­fi­able.

Con­clu­sion

To date the lack of a stan­dard­ized de­f­i­n­i­tion for COVID-19 fa­tal­i­ties, as well as the fail­ure to re­port covid-19 break­through cas­es amongst the vac­ci­nat­ed has cre­at­ed a sense of pub­lic con­fu­sion, frus­tra­tion, and mis­trust. The has left many cit­i­zens to view the MOH brief­ing as lit­tle more than a pub­lic re­la­tions stunt rather than a trans­par­ent dis­clo­sure of use­ful da­ta that pro­vides in­sight in­to the over­all suc­cess of the vac­cine dri­ve or the safe zone ini­tia­tive.

NATUC SAY NO TO MANDA­TO­RY VAC­CI­NA­TION.

NATUC SAY NO TO SAFE ZONES.

NATUC SAY YES TO GEN­UINE SO­CIAL DI­A­LOGUE.