Let’s start with the island nation of Haiti. As if it wasn’t bad enough that their president, Jovenel Moise was assassinated in his own home one month ago, on July 7th, the death toll from the powerful earthquake that struck Haiti over the weekend has risen to 1,419. The number of injured people has grown to 6,000, and these numbers will be changing, probably even before this edition of the SCOOP is published online.
The earthquake destroyed thousands of homes, offices, churches, and other structures. And the devastation could soon get worse with the coming of Tropical Depression Grace, predicted to reach Haiti Monday night with strong winds, heavy rain, mudslides, and flash flooding. Rainfall could reach 15 inches (38 centimeters) in some areas. The magnitude 7.2 earthquake left at least 5,700 people injured, with thousands more displaced from destroyed or damaged homes. Les Cayes was darkened by intermittent blackouts, and any people slept outside, clutching transistor radios tuned to news, terrified of the continuing aftershocks.
The reality is that Haiti, much like Puerto Ricco, never fully recovered from its last major earthquake, which was on Tuesday, January 12, 2010. It was a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, and the government reported 316,000 deaths. An estimated three million people were affected by that earthquake.
As for now, in 2021, with the Coronavirus pandemic still ongoing, any natural emergency becomes an additional pandemic emergency. This newest earthquake disaster coincides with political instability, rising gang violence, alarmingly high rates of malnutrition among children, and the COVID-19 pandemic–for which Haiti has received just 500,000 vaccine doses, despite requiring far more.
The country of 11 million people received its first batch of U.S.-donated coronavirus vaccines only last month via a United Nations program for low-income countries.
Meanwhile, due to the earthquake, medical workers from across the region have to refocus their energy to scramble to help as hospitals in Les Cayes started running out of space to perform surgeries related to earthquake injuries.
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In other sad news, the weekend in Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York, was described as “bloody weekends.” That means lots of shootings and killings. A 7-year-old girl was amongst the dead in Chicago. Get this: At least 46 people were shot between 5 pm on Friday and Sunday afternoon, four of them fatally, according to the Chicago Police Department. In Philadelphia over this past weekend, 11 people were shot, (5) fatally. Entering the weekend 1,333 people had been shot in Philadelphia this year, a 19% increase from the same period a year ago, according to Philadelphia Police Department crime statistics.
In New York City, 15 people were killed or wounded in 11 separate shootings across New York on Friday, August 13th.
It is heartbreaking thinking about all the violence we’re witnessing, not only in Philadelphia but in cities across America. Absolutely heartbreaking.
I will be the first to acknowledge that I don’t have the answers to solve the violence. But I was pleased to learn that neighbors in the vicinity of MLK Recreation Center will hold a community rally to support voting rights and to recruit more men to become involved in stopping street violence. The rally is being held on Saturday, Aug. 21 at 2:00 p.m. at the MLK Recreation Center, 2101 Cecil B. Moore Ave. It is being supported by the O.V. Catto Initiative, the Phila. Dept. of Recreation and Leadership from the surrounding community.
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Another sad news story that broke over the weekend is happening in Afghanistan. The Taliban has essentially taken over the country. It seems that without American soldiers on hand to fight their war for them, the Afghan army is just not strong enough to hold off the Taliban. President Biden has declared that American Citizens and those working to support American citizens will all get out of Afghanistan safely, but this is a developing story and truly, we do not know what will happen next.
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The COVID numbers are still on the rise, particularly in our southern states, but numbers of new cases of COVID are still increasing in the North, as well. The crazy thing is, the majority of people infected with COVID, sitting up in hospitals right now, are people who refused to get the COVID vaccine or who said things like they “meant to get it, but got busy,” etc. O.K. got busy. Mask mandates are back in many places across the country. A growing number of companies and colleges are mandating vaccines for workers and students, and those decisions are holding up under legal challenges. I cannot tell anyone else what to do with their life or with their health, but as for me and mine, those of us who are of age to receive the vaccine are all vaccinated. We want to live. I also still believe in the power of prayer. I have to. It keeps me sane. Stay tuned to the SCOOP.
