The coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis has been met with differential responses worldwide. In some parts of the world, it seems the people and their governments started to take the matter seriously a few days too late. Thankfully, we here in Jamaica have had the luxury of seeing the impact on these people and have reacted in time.

In 2020, cut the sermonising and the hand-wringing about the injuries and fatalities, and implement radical and dramatic correctives commensurate to the tragedy of 400 dead and countless thousand broken bodies in the past year.

All the portents from the recent Madrid Conference on climate change point to an impending and inevitable disaster, if the wealthiest and largest nations of the world do not drastically reduce their carbon emissions over the next five years.

Laptops, rather than textbooks, and all the possibilities cascading from that change is no panacea for equal opportunity and quality teaching and learning, but recommends itself in place of the lumbering 19th and 20th-century textbook regimen.

It has been hard to follow the proceedings of the House of Representatives recently. The order of business has moved from rigidity to unpredictable chaos, and we are forced to wonder if this reflects a blundering mindset of those in charge. This, after all, is supposed to be the highest court of the land.

Hearts of stone became hearts of flesh in the House of Representatives on Tuesday as Shaneille Hall told of the teenage torture of sexual abuse by the grandfather she yearned and deserved to trust. Her courage and resilience broke through the usual toughness and bravado of the chamber.

The transfer of resources from the many poor to the few rich continues in Jamaica with a new vengeance. It is the greatest injustice since slavery.

Last week in Parliament, Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton spoke in detail on the implementation of a long-awaited plan whereby the State will pay for a range of diagnostic tests offered by private facilities when these are unavailable at public health institutions.