Over the last three days, there has been an as­tro­nom­i­cal rise in COVID-19 cas­es lo­cal­ly.

In the past week, the coun­try record­ed its high­est num­ber of pos­i­tive cas­es since the pan­dem­ic be­gan on March 12, 2020 – be­tween last Sat­ur­day and to­day the coun­try record­ed 1,537 new cas­es, on Fri­day alone there were 326 cas­es. This cou­pled with the loss of four lives in one day to the virus, 12 in one week, make re­cent de­vel­op­ments with the dis­ease alarm­ing, wor­ri­some, and heart­break­ing.

There is no doubt some­thing had to be done by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and his gov­ern­ment to stem the cat­a­stroph­ic climb in cas­es, which has the po­ten­tial to crip­ple the health sec­tor and lead to ut­ter dev­as­ta­tion in the coun­try, much like what is tak­ing place in In­dia.

But no mat­ter how nec­es­sary and well-in­ten­tioned the re­stric­tions are, the fact is the liveli­hoods of many work­ing-class cit­i­zens hang in the bal­ance.

On Thurs­day hun­dreds of em­ploy­ees from restau­rants, gyms, cin­e­mas, spas, hair­dress­ing sa­lons, and cus­tomer rep­re­sen­ta­tives in stores lo­cat­ed in malls, head­ed home with no idea how they will pay their bills and sur­vive come May month-end.

Many small busi­ness own­ers, who af­ter the lock­down im­posed from April 2020, strug­gled to stay afloat, were lit­er­al­ly now break­ing even and eye­ing a prof­it. They now find them­selves hav­ing to start all over again.

Al­ready many busi­ness­es in malls across the coun­try were forced to shut per­ma­nent­ly, send­ing thou­sands of work­ers on the bread­line, a large ma­jor­i­ty still search­ing for gain­ful em­ploy­ment.

Al­though the lock­down mea­sures are in place for rough­ly three weeks, the fi­nan­cial blow dealt by them is se­vere and will re­ver­ber­ate for months to come.

This is why calls from busi­ness cham­bers and fi­nan­cial ex­perts for the gov­ern­ment to re­veal its plan to re­vi­tal­ize the econ­o­my and cush­ion the eco­nom­ic im­pact of the re­stric­tions, must be heed­ed and an­swered.

Dur­ing the last lock­down, a suite of so­cial and eco­nom­ic aid ini­tia­tives was in­tro­duced to help af­fect­ed cit­i­zens, which in­clud­ed the $131 mil­lion for the salary re­lief grant.

On Thurs­day the Prime Min­is­ter made it clear for yet an­oth­er time that there may not be that much mon­ey around this time to help those in need.

He, how­ev­er, stopped short of say­ing more and de­tail­ing what, if any, pro­grammes would be rolled out for the thou­sands with­out jobs and cash-strapped busi­ness­es.

But the coun­try needs more than plat­i­tudes.

Not every­one wants a hand­out. They want a lev­el play­ing field and a chance to suc­ceed.

What cit­i­zens are de­mand­ing now is a sol­id, re­al­is­tic, work­able fi­nan­cial plan to help them nav­i­gate the months ahead with COVID and be­yond.

Busi­ness­es, home­own­ers with mort­gages, ten­ants ow­ing rent, cit­i­zens with per­son­al loans all need to be told how those fi­nan­cial com­mit­ments will be met month-end and if they will be giv­en a brief respite.

The strict re­stric­tions im­posed aim to pre­serve the lives of cit­i­zens against a virus that has mu­tat­ed and with every new vari­ant is be­com­ing high­ly trans­mis­si­ble.

But once the pop­u­la­tion out­lasts COVID-19, they need to know they can live com­fort­ably and not suc­cumb to fi­nan­cial ru­in or worse...pover­ty.