As we live through this period of national difficulty, with runaway numbers being reported for Covid-19 infections and La Soufriere looming over our heads, we have to be each other’s keepers.

Covid-19 does not discriminate in choosing who to infect, and neither will the volcano be selective about whose lives to disrupt if and when it moves into an explosive stage of eruption.

If we fight these challenges as a disunited group of people, Covid-19 will win, the volcano will win, and we, as a people will lose. This is not the time for our political, religious or medical leaders’ egos to get in the way, or for point scoring by opinion leaders in our newspapers or on the radio and social media.

No individual here or anywhere else in the world has the perfect plan to deal with Covid-19, while keeping food on the plates of the people. No one knows if and when the eruptions at La Soufriere will turn explosive and for how long that stage will last.

Our challenges can only be overcome by coordinated, united effort.

But while we work together, we must be wary of the noise coming from those who reject the science but yet have no concrete suggestions or proposals that will in fact remove the threat of what is a very real pandemic.

Then there are those who are very effective at pointing out the shortcomings but offer nothing by way of workable solutions, given our reality here in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

Covid-19 and safety during the eruption can only be overcome and achieved respectively by a coordinated, constructive, united effort.