Why we don't have COVID-19

I started to write this post a couple of weeks ago, but, as life goes, never finished it. And then they finally announced cases of COVID-19, so it seemed irrelevant. But hey, you get to enjoy a snippet of island life... after the fact.

Our international borders closed on March 23rd, but the first case wasn't announced until April 30th. Even after unofficial reports started coming about cases, it still took awhile for the government to announce cases. But without further ado, as of late April, you could find many people on the streets still declaring boldly that we were a nation without COVID-19. But why?

We closed our borders and we're isolated from the world: This seems reasonable. First, they implemented mandatory quarantine in a government facility for those coming from specific countries, then they closed flights from countries with more than 10 cases of the virus, and then they finally stopped all international passenger flights. So it seems like a group of islands could avoid infection, right? Except that there's been an outbreak on the French island nearby since mid-March, and fishing boats have continued to sneak through bringing people from there.

It's hot here: the virus is killed easily by sunlight, and it's sunny and hot here, so the virus stands no chance. Let's just ignore the other hot climates that have had bad virus outbreaks.

The Chinese experimented on us: several years back, the Chinese government used some experimental medicine to eradicate malaria here. Maybe that medicine also gave islanders unique immunity to Covid?

God has had pity on us because we're poor: Yep. Okay then.

We're good religious people: This was one of my favorite reasons, so I saved it for last. Because really, how many islanders are completely faithful in practicing their religion? How have other, more faithfully Muslim countries fared?


And yet this reason was the most commonly heard in the last days before the government admitted the presence of the virus. Obviously only the hand of God could have spared us from the virus, and if He did, it's because we're good practitioners of our religion.

Well, all that to say, the virus was here. And now that it's officially recognized people are doing better at trying to slow the spread of disease. But hey, we "didn't have the virus" for quite awhile.