Plastic Bags will Not Save Us

When the previous Roatan Municipal administration banned plastic bags and transparent plastic containers, I was not happy. Not because I dislike nature, am particularly lazy, or even poor. This municipal exercise in virtue signaling seemed pointless beyond allowing Roatan’s local government to signal that they too have joined this global psychosis.
The cost of not being provided free plastic bags by grocers is passed on to the consumer. I’ve done the calculations and every year it costs me $90 to keep up with this “no plastic bags” virtue signaling. I lose about $20 by having to buy bags at 10 Lps. a piece. When there are no bags available, I have to pay someone to pack my food items into a cardboard box and carry it to my car. Sometimes that carton breaks apart, spilling and ruining its content. The estimated cost of these lost items? $30 a year.

It costs me $90 to keep up with this “no plastic bags” virtue signaling.

We don’t only lose money in the name of carrying out this virtue signal, we lose time. I spend extra time waiting for the supermarket store packer to locate a box and tie it down with black plastic string. The entire process can extend each visit to the supermarket by an extra 1-2 minutes. These minutes add up. I go to Eldon’s every other day on average, which is about 182 times a year. Multiply that by, say, 1.5 minutes, and you have 273 minutes or 4.5 hours a year.
For having groceries packed, I have to pay a grocery clerk to carry the boxes to the car, which that was not always the case. When I got a few bags, I would carry them myself.
I miss the convenience of the always abundant, available, and strong plastic bags for my groceries. Those of us who wanted to bring their own bags were welcome to do so. I feel almost melancholic about them. They had several different sizes and featured white and orange stripes.

The “So Very Much Caring” Banks

Another virtue signaling exercise has been performed for nearly three years by Honduran Banks. Since mid- 2020, when the COVID lockdowns began, these banks begun pushing the illusion that wearing masks is essential for conducting business and that they care about public health. Banks forced everybody to participate in this psychotic masquerade and outlasted even government institutions in its enforcement.
Honduran banks have been enforcing a “no hats” rule in banks for two decades. The logic behind “no hats” in Honduran banks is somewhat sound, as hats can obscure the face and could aid in staying stealthy during a robbery. However, if you follow simple logic, requiring wearing a face mask negates the need to remove hats. Apparently, for the banks — supposedly logical economic institutions — logic has very quickly reached its limit.

From Church of Hope to Church of Fear

The virtue signaling in Catholic churches in Honduras and on the island has also reached a crescendo. During the COVID operation, the Honduran Catholic Church authorities somehow convinced their faithful that taking Eucharist in their hands and then placing it in their mouths is somehow safer, and that we are less likely to fall ill and die from the Eucharist this way.
This “virtuous” act is revolutionary. Allow me to explain. One of basic Catholic tenants of faith is the dogma of Transubstantiation. Since the Council of Trent in 1551, according to Catholic Church teachings, “the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of the Blood of Christ” is central to the faith.
This transubstantiation takes place through Eucharistic prayer and the actions of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the treating of the consecrated host is of utmost importance for a Catholic. The consecrated host is venerated and guarded and all costs. For millennia, it could only be touched by the consecrated, purified hands of a priest and was delivered only onto the tongue.
In 2020, when Church authorities in Honduras and Roatan virtue signaled that they are concerned about those accepting the consecrated Body of Christ, local churches began enforcing that the Body of Christ be taken onto often unwashed, unsanitary hands before placing the host into one’s month. That Honduran bishops introduced this idea — that the Body of Christ could kill you — is peak satanic manipulation of the frightened masses.
The Catholic Church, which for 2,000 years reminded us about the transcendental value of faith and the importance of the afterlife, has suddenly and incredibly convinced us that, in reality, this physical life is most important. Just like that, the Church has gone from being a shepherd of souls to administrators of fear in a religion of scientism.
We are constantly pressured by media, authorities, and friends to despise classical virtues and to glorify and celebrate vices. We are taught to despise moderation, temperance, chastity, beauty, and life. We are pressured to glorify pride, gluttony, sodomy, ugliness and death. We may live in transvaluated times, but I, for one, refuse to adopt those values as my own.

We are taught to despise moderation, temperance, chastity, beauty, and life.

While the imposed lockdowns and restrictions were designed to break me spiritually, physically and financially I survived – even prospered. I emerged with a renewed faith in God, new skills, a sense of resilience, and eventually paid off lockdown-generated financial debt with a new business. The COVID-19 operation has also opened my eyes to the global players and their agendas and methods.

I no longer trust the Honduran government’s interest in keeping me safe, healthy, or economically strong. The Honduran government is an Orwellian entity called SINAGER [Sistema Nacional de Gestión de Riesgos], with no distinguished individuals heading it that can pressure me into closing my business, my church, or attempting to scare me into staying indoors for almost an entire year.

The Honduran government signed a waver with drug manufacturers like Pfizer, Moderna, and Sputnik to wave any financial responsibility for effects of the experimental jabs in the short term, or even years later. Honduran government officials, like most but not all others around the world, sold their constituents down the river for profit, recognition, and a temporary feeling of security.

From the moment they signed these wavers, the government of Honduras became a party to the cover up of any of the adverse side effects of the COVID-19 jabs, no matter how few or how multiple and long lasting they were… The Honduran government became complicit with the pharmaceutical companies to dismiss, cover up, and reduce any claims of damages from the COVID-19 injections.

I have lost faith in many of our educators. They allowed and participated in the closure of Honduran schools for two years, which has damaged an entire generation of children for life. It contributed to analphabetism, escalated child abuse cases, and developed phobias and learning disorders. Sadly, the vast majority of Honduran teachers represent their own interests and the interest of the state − not the best interests of the children that parents have entrusted in them.

The government of Honduras became a party to the cover up.

To make matters worse, the Honduran government has applied the “no-jab, no-school” rule. On a positive note, I know of several teachers who did not pressure the parents into injecting their children with this experimental gene therapy in order to attend classes. Good for them.

I no longer believe that international organizations have our best interests at heart. The WHO and the UN have their own agendas about fertility and population control that go against my beliefs, as well as those of many of my fellow islanders. They have defined what is best for us, and it is often what we would consider wrong.

I no longer trust pharmaceutical companies. Companies like Pfizer and Moderna have marginalized any existing medical treatments to the COVID-19 virus. Not to mention, these companies pressured − and sometimes bribed − officials into signing contracts that waived their liability for any adverse reactions for what are supposedly “safe medical therapies” − a contradiction in itself.

The dollar per dose cost of these jabs − which are dangerous for your health and ineffective in preventing the spread of COVID-19 – is extreme. The price of these “vaccines” has varied in time and manufacturer, but as an example, Pfizer CFO Frank D’Amelio stated in 2022 that the company typically gets “$150, $175 per dose” of the COVID-19 jab. The pharmaceuticals making tens of billions of dollars were not willing to set up a fund for those injured by their products.

I lost a great deal of trust and respect for health workers, and for most of the individual doctors that I know. Instead of following the Hippocratic Oath “Primum non nocere [First do no harm],” they gave in to fear and pressures from the state. They pushed us to stay home, to not look for ways to naturally strengthen our immune systems (or strengthen our spirits), nor towards safe and existing treatments like Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine, Zinc, and vitamin D. Instead, we were told to simply take the jab.

I don’t believe Honduran government officials are merely incompetent or neglectful. I believe they are agents of the state and hold the interests of the state before ours. During the lockdowns and then during the rollout of the COVID-19 jabs, the island-born director of Roatan Public Hospital went door-to-door pressuring business owners to require their employees to take the experimental injections. This individual is not a scientist, but an agent of the state.

While many business owners succumbed to pressure, some did not. I applaud these business owners and have great respect for them. They are the type of individuals that I want by my side.

Roatan’s religious leaders have let us down in our darkest hours. During the lockdown fear campaign, we could go shopping at hardware stores but churches and gyms had to remain closed. Not a single priest I know, not a single Honduran bishop or pastor I know on the island had the integrity to speak out against the taking away of people’s right to worship, and value the salvation of their souls above all else.

A quote from the New Testament helped me see how the fear separated the good from the bad. “(…) The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. But the hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and flieth,” John 10:11-13 (Douay-Rheims bible).

I found out that Roatan is filled with hired hands guarding the sheep. The priests and pastors have all hid in the dark, fearful of falling ill or dying, but completely ignoring the welfare of their soul and the salvation of the faithful who entrusted their faith in them. I do not know of a single religious leader on Roatan that stood up to the propaganda of fear during the COVID-19 operations, save one protestant pastor in Oak Ridge that continued Sunday worship.

There were no prayers for the COVID-19 virus to spare the island, for islanders to be able to keep their souls, their freedoms, and their health. The only organized prayer was for the release of then-mayor Jerry Hinds from his arrest in Tegucigalpa.

I now distrust social media as it has become yet another tool used in controlling what we think. The algorithms ostracize opinions that differ from the official narrative. The Facebook algorithms pushed opinions supportive of the experimental and dangerous COVID-19 genetic therapy as “safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines,” while marginalizing, demonizing, and deplatforming skeptics whose opinions opposed the only acceptable narrative.

According to Sean Parker, the early Facebook investor and Napster founder billionaire, with each ‘like’ and ‘comment’ Facebook is “exploiting” human psychology on purpose to keep users hooked on a “social-validation feedback loop.” Facebook and other social media has made us the wardens in our own prisons. “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.”

Religious leaders have let us down in our darkest hours.

I lost trust in a few of the people I considered friends. I had several of these wannabe pundits who vilified me and ridiculed me during the COVID-19 operation. They felt they were smarter and more authoritative because of the regurgitated official COVID-19 narrative, and had their posts promoted by Facebook and Google algorithms.

My loss of trust and respect in some was replaced and given to others. The COVID-19 experience has evoked respect and trust in me to people and professions I maybe did not appreciate enough. I now have much respect for small scale, local farmers that put the food on my table. I try to purchase as many Honduran made food products as possible. I now grow my own food (bananas, sweet potatoes, cassava and plantains) and keep bees for honey.

I have more respect for the independent-minded truckers in the US, Canada, and Europe who moved goods during the COVID-19 operation. They did their best to protest the lockdowns and freedom restrictions in Ottawa, DC, and Europe, and they were imprisoned, fined or demonized for it by the controlled media.

I have more respect for non-conformist voices. Very often these dissenters are vilified by the media, but they are exactly the ones we should be listening to. The more they are dynamically silenced, the more they are vilified and marginalized by society and the media, the more I am willing to give them my attention and trust.

In the medical field, fantastic and brave doctors and scientists such as Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Peter McCullough have been warning us about the dangers of indiscriminate lockdowns and experimental COVID-19 jabs.

I respect Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a high ranking Catholic Church official who continues to speak out against the the COVID-19 lockdowns and fear mongering, and names the people that are in the highest positions of power.

There is a brave and articulate voice in the political realm challenging the false COVID-19 narrative we have been sold. Robert Kennedy Jr., US Democratic party candidate for president for 2024, has argued hundreds of cases against the pharmaceutical companies. He is the chair of Children’s Defense Fund, an organization arguing that millions of American and Honduran children have conditions such as autism, ADHD, allergies, and autoimmune diseases caused by chemicals and radiation.

We are all targets, not of incompetence and corruption, but of organized campaigns of fear, gaslighting, and mobbying. Mark Twain once observed, “it’s easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.” We are not alone. Many of us had their faith and confidence shaken in many institutions, professions, and individuals, but the process of realizing that is gradual. For many, it will never take place.

Funeral Businesses on Roatan are Looking at a Bright Future

For a-century-and-a-half, Roatan’s caskets were made to order by local carpenters. Even today some people still choose to have a carpenter make their casket.

In 2023 there are three places to purchase your caskets on Roatan. The first one opened by Samuel Alexander Ebanks, 79 and his wife Patricia Elaine Bennett, 78, on the main street of Coxen Hole. Their forty-year-old business, Islander’s Funeral Home, is the oldest such one in the Bay Islands.

Mr. Samuel remembers a voice speaking to him: “When you stay home you got to sell caskets”

When he retired from his sea fearing career, Mr. Samuel remembers a voice speaking to him: “When you stay home you got to sell caskets.” It was 1983 and Roatan had no casket stores. When someone died a carpenter would have to make a simple casket right there and then. The island custom until them was that men would build the casket at night during the wake and bury the deceased the next day.

He had an employee making caskets, another man painting the caskets and then another man would fix the inside. If the family wished a viewing glass, it was installed on the top of the casket.

Eventually Mr. Sam began buying caskets in San Pedro, in Copán, in Tegucigalpa, in Olanchito and in La Ceiba. Islanders from Utila and even Guanaja would travel to their funeral home to purchase a casket for their deceased family member.

In 1980s and 1990s mahogany was still inexpensive and majority of caskets then were made on the island used this hardwood as the main material. “The first casket I made was a mahogany casket,” remembers Mr. Samuel.

Samuel remembers the best cabinet maker he ever had. Edmundo Ponce was from the coast, and he could make the finest casket even if all he had was scrap wood. He once made a Copa de France design casket using throw away pieces of wood. “The foot is round, and the head is round,” says Mr. Patrick. “DV Woods bought that casket for his daddy.”

Not every deceased is shaped the same and Mr. Patrick has to be ready to make caskets for smaller and bigger deceased. “Sometime I have to make a big casket.… I had to buy one inch plywood and had to make 36 inch wide casket. She was big,” remembering one such client Mr. Patrick says “It took 10 men to put her in that house.”

His caskets range from Lps. 25,000 to Lps. 35,000, but he has some economical models for Lps. 12,000. While on a typical month his funeral home would sell one, or two caskets, they sold 15 caskets in one month. “When the Covid 19 came to the island, it was the most we sell,” says Mr. Patrick. He has a network of casket makers.

In 2012 a second Roatan based funeral home opened its doors just 200 meters down the road from Islander’s Funeral Home. Divino Paraíso is one of 12 funeral homes opened in Honduras by Salvador Laro from La Ceiba. Laro opened his first store in 2009 and the Roatan operation in La Punta in Coxen Hole begun two years later.

The funeral home serves the entire spectrum of caskets, from Lps. 8,000 to Lps. 38,000. The Wood composite caskets are the most economical option, while the painted and varnished wood caskets at Lps. 38,000 are the ultimate luxury.

Osiris Zambrano and her husband Ronald Rojas have been managing Divino Paraíso for 11 years. They are the biggest vendor of caskets on Roatan and typically have about twenty caskets on hand.

According to Zambrano there was a spike of caskets purchases in 2020 when the funeral home was selling 15-20 caskets a month. Now they are back to pre 2020 levels with sales of two to three caskets a month.

Funeral traditions on the island are different then of those on the mainland.

One reason allowing the funeral home to grow is funebre, a contractual payment option where clients are contacted to begin paying off their caskets in monthly installments. “It is an option for the most humble families,” says Zambrano. These monthly payment vary from Lps. 300 up to Lps. 2,000 and the family has up to eight months to pay off the casket after the death of the client.

Mrs. Zambrano says that the island’s security companies are one of the Divino Paraíso’s best clients. “They pay up front in any of their employees dies,” says Zambrano.

The funeral home can move the body in a vehicle and have 25 chairs, casket stretcher, candelabras, altar that can be used during funeral services.

The funeral home also offers Embalming services. The Embalming is an option taken by all, but the most modest of their clients. The embalming costs Lps. 2,000 and Lps. 4,000. The service is more expensive if the person was overweight or if there was disfigurement at time of the death as with “people who died in motorcycle accidents,” for example.

The funeral traditions on the island are different then of those on the mainland. “I don’t think the islanders would want a funeral room like the store has in La Ceiba,” says Zambrano. “There are hundreds of people that show to funerals here, and there just wouldn’t be enough space.”

The funeral home works with importing of human remains to the island form abroad. The remains are typically flown in to San Pedro Sula and then transported by road to La Ceiba and to the island via Galaxy Ferry.

Cemetery burial is one of several options for the deceased on the island. Jardines del Recuerdo in San Pedro Sula offers cremation services in Honduras. According to Zambrano this option is typically taken by foreigners. Burial at sea, usually three miles out to sea, is sometimes an option taken by foreigners with few economic means.

As I write, lawsuits are being filed all over the United States for violation of rights with the mandatory vaccine policies. Meanwhile in our “banana country” here is the run-down of our pandemic and government continued response.

Let’s look back how this all began. In March 2020, all of Honduras began a national lock down. Soon there were no spaces left in rooms at hospitals and not enough respirators. There were no ICU rooms spaces either.

Honduras unveiled the introduction of the MAIZ (Microdacyn, Azithromycin, Ivermectin and Zinc) protocol as prophylactic treatment for COVID with no clue of its effectiveness.

By the end of 2020 we had vaccines donated to the government which promptly declared they were mandatory for all the population without further research, or care.

Then the Honduran government under the state of emergency purchased seven modular or mobile hospitals for almost $48 million. These hospitals have yet to arrive and only two government officials have been prosecuted for this multimillion-dollar fraud. There is nothing better than a world health crisis to bring out the lowlifes who are looking to profit from the chaos and death.

The COVID vaccinations were made mandatory for all Hondurans, regardless of their medical conditions, or religious beliefs. I still ask myself were we made to act like the sheep led to slaughter. Or were our instincts to trust the government, to follow the science wherever it would lead.

The mask mandate that has proven to not be effective and the US has eliminated, is still in effect in Honduras. We are still required to wear a mask to enter the immigration offices when flying back to Honduras, but that is not required on the aircraft you just arrived in. There are many arbitrary, illogical COVID-19 rules. There is no sign when will the madness will stop.

We have lost our minds in one of the most corrupt and uneducated countries.

In no way, shape, or form I am minimizing the deadliness of this COVID disease. I’ve lost loved ones and dear friends to this virus/pandemic. What I am suggesting is that we have lost our minds in one of the most corrupt and uneducated countries in the world. A government of a county such as ours cannot decide what is best for each and every citizen.

Who decides what mandates to keep, and which aren’t valid. We live in a country where government cannot maintain stock of medication in our public hospitals or pay the hardworking medical staff. Yet we are told the authorities somehow know what the best for your personal health is.

With ever increasing knowledge of the side effects and long-term consequences of the vaccine against COVID-19, some US states officials are finally asking tough questions of Pfizer and Moderna. Until even now the rushing of the vaccine rollout was never questioned.

Many countries were sold the COVID vaccines with the caveat that they could not ever under any circumstances sue the manufacturer. Billions of dollars went into Big Pharma that has now zero liability for any future lawsuits for side effects.

We still don’t know what exactly is in this shot we have all been coerced to receive in this country or be forced out from our workplaces. No Honduran government employee could refuse this COVID vaccine. Even now your child cannot attend school without it. The unvaxed cannot fly on local flights and, at least in theory, are not able to receive hospital attention. This madness has no end in sight.

The Paradoxical Consistency of Vain Actions

While most of us have already decided what COVID-19 is and how we trust the narrative that media and governments have given us. Still a few basic questions linger unanswered for almost a year. Our life and destiny on Roatan is directly connected to events happening in US and Europe. With Christmas “cancelled” in greater part of the western world we can at least take a time to reflect on how we got here.

Where is “patient zero” and why is no one asking about him?
The notoriously lying Chinese authorities originally reported that the first Coronavirus case took place on 31 December, 2019 near animal market in Wuhan. At a later one point Wuhan Institute of Virology scientist Huang Yanling was speculated to be patient zero, before she disappeared amidst silence from authorities and media. In every modern epidemic: from Spanish flu to AIDS authorities have found their patient zero, but in case of COVID-19 no one seems to bother looking.

Why did CIA, NSA, etc not tell us how the virus originated so we could sleep better at night? 
It can be a bit frustrating not knowing if the COVID-19 originated in a bat soup, was an accidental release from a Wuhan Institute of Virology, or was spread on purpose. Without knowing the circumstances of the COVID-19 origins we can’t really make any coherent strategies how to prevent appearance of subsequent COVIDS. The two dozen “US security agencies,” that didn’t keep us safe in the first place nor seem to care to keep us free from anxiety.

Why no one did or insisted on cost benefit analysis of “saving lives” versus shutting down business, schools and churches? 
Any sizable business or organization that wants to survive will do a profit-loss analysis before shutting down their operation at a large scale. That is just pure logic. Yet with the exception of Sweden, Belarus, Taiwan and South Dakota vast majority of governments have not done so. Spikes in untreated cancers and heart disease, suicides and drug overdose have outnumbered the deaths from COVID-19. These deaths of misery and neglect occur often not in the “over 60 COVID vulnerable” but amongst the most productive segment of the population: people in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

Why after more than a year can’t the US get a congressional commission to tell us the cause of appearance of COVID-19 and its spread? 
A week after JFK was assassinated Warren Commission was created to prove to the American public that a lone gunman killed the US president. Ten weeks after 9/11 a commission was established that assured the Americans that the al-Qaida hijackers were responsible of flying a commercial airplane into the Pentagon’s accounting office. Now over a year after the COVID-19 outbreak there is no will for establishing a commission to determine who is to blame.

If so many pharmaceutical companies can develop a “great vaccine” in 10 month, why were the same companies taking 10-15 years to develop other vaccines in the first place? 
Developing good, reliable safe vaccines is not easy and takes time. That time is measured in years and sometimes decades and the procedures of creating helpful and profitable vaccines have been worked for over a century. When a dozen pharmaceutical companies in countries from China, Russia and USA develop a COVID-19 in 10 months instead of 10 years mistakes will inevitably be made and will have long lasting consequences.

Whom do I sue when I suffer serious negative consequences of a vaccine? 
After their indemnity deals with many governments the pharmaceutical companies have no interest in providing a safe COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine manufacturers will not suffer a financial risk when their vaccines will do harm. And yes, practically all vaccines have a percentage of patients with serious side effects.

If there are multiple strains of Coivid-19, do we have to shelter in place another 10 months to have new vaccines developed? 
Flue and COVID viruses mutate – that is their nature. Therefore vaccines for one strain of a virus are useless or at least not very useful for other ones.

Who decided that value of “life at all cost” outweighs “right to live free?” 
In World War II we were told to sacrifice, and die so our families and foreign lands could be free. Seventy millions people died in World War II fighting for freedom. It’s perplexing that only 80 years later we are told we need to sacrifice or basic freedoms – freedom of expression, worship, travel “not to even risk getting exposed” to COVID-19.

Why governments wouldn’t allow or even promote for its citizens to have ample access to spiritual nourishment and churches? 
For millennia churches have adapted to functioning in times of plagues much more deadly than COVID-19: Black Plague, typhus S and Spanish flu. In times of crisis many people become closer to God and rediscover their faith. As a consequence they become stronger, better people. This is not being allowed to happen during the COVID-19 restrictions. “We see heads of nations and religious leaders pandering to this suicide of Western culture and its Christian soul, while the fundamental rights of citizens and believers are denied in the name of a health,” wrote archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.

Roatan Police Steps Up Enforcing Nonsensical ‘Mask Laws’ and Punishes Mask Refuseniks

The law forces children over the age of three to wear masks, even at home and when they are sleeping if there are more than five people present. “I witnessed a man doing hard physical labor covered in sweat no one close and wearing a mask. Common sense needs to take precedence over mask rules,” said Paul Kendall, a Roatan resident. Sadly, common sense is in increasingly in short supply. “Evil appears as good in the minds of those whom god leads to destruction,” wrote ancient playwright Sophocles.

Hondurans are much more complicit in allowing being deprived of freedoms to worship, travel and personal property. Unlike almost daily protests against mask wearing that are taking place in Australia, UK and Germany, Hondurans have remained silent.

Law forces children over the age of three to wear masks, even at home and when they are sleeping if there are more than five people present. 

The 58-2020 decree specifies a 200 Lps. fine or “social work for six hours” for first time mask refuseniks. The second violation is punishable by a 12-hour arrest and “habitual violators” are to be deprived of Honduran social programs and fiscal incentives. The Honduran mask law is basically a simplified Chinese “social credit system” that turned China into an open-air prison.

With the decree the notoriously corrupt Honduran police force was given a cash cow they are likely to milk dry. National Police on the island has been fining first time mask refuseniks 300 Lps, instead of 200 Lps. that the decree specifies, or arresting them without giving them option to pay the fine in the first place. “They are only bothering people that walk by. Look for thieves and murderers instead,” wrote about the police on social media Karen Norales.

“Habitual violators” are to be deprived of Honduran social programs and fiscal incentives. The Honduran mask law is basically a simplified Chinese “Social credit system” 

Honduran national police increasingly “protects and serves” their own and oligarchic interests. Roatan Police fines private vehicle drivers for not wearing masks even thou the law 58-2020 in article 13 exempts them from wearing masks. “If you leave on public roads you have to wear masks and practice social distancing,” said Sub Commissioner Serrano Nieto, Bay Islands police chief.

Making wearing masks in vehicles is not only illegal, it can be dangerous. “I almost last control of my motorcycle and crashed as my mask blew up and covered my eyes,” says Kennely Ordóñez, resident of Jose Santos Guardiola.

Forcing healthy people to wear masks are means of enforcing conformity and an instrument of control. Some Roatanians see the ironies that many of the 30-or-so police officers who brought the COVID-19 virus with them in July are now are making others to wear masks.

The COVID-19 Restrictions Cause Havoc and Presents Opportunities

According to Roatan’s multiple listing service (MLS) records the home and land sales in the Bay Islands have declined 82% since the March COVID-19 lockdown. “The first two-and-a-half months were especially bad,” says Steve Hasz, owner of Roatan Life Real Estate. “It’s been catastrophic.” While the Roatan MLS showed 122 closings between March 21 and September 9 of 2019, in the same period in 2020 only 22 properties were closed.

To reach out to potential clients stranded in the US and Canada Roatan Life invested in virtual tour system that helps in convincing the buyers to invest in Roatan. “We are doing this by using state of the art 3D virtual tour software for virtual walkthroughs and by doing live stream open houses,” says Hasz. 

There are some now type of people interested in moving to Roatan as Hasz is starting to see buyers fleeing the US political climate and COVID-19 restrictions. Hasz is not alone in seeing improved sales on the horizon. “Buyers are rethinking their lifestyle choices, core values. Since working from somewhere specific is no longer needed we can expect to see massive moves to lifestyle destinations to live and work remotely,” said Anna Moskowitz, owner of Lux Roatan Real Estate who believes that Roatan is in line to benefit from an influx of American home buyers. “Face time virtual tours we are using for a more personal approach is working. We have had unprecedented sight-unseen sales that are continuing.”

The home and land sales in the Bay Islands have declined 82% since the March COVID-19 lockdown.

The COVID-19 travel restrictions have prevented many potential buyers from coming to the island. While it was almost impossible to travel to Roatan from April till August things are now getting easier.

American Airlines is offering a weekly connection with US via Miami and other airlines are not far behind. United Airlines pushes back its comeback to Roatan from October to early November and Avianca plans on coming back its flight from San Salvador on October 25. Delta has cancelled coming back too Roatan until 2021. “We do need flights to be back in full swing to get our sales numbers up though,” said Hasz.

In 2019 local business community working through Bay islands Tourism Bureau and with Roatan Municipalities hired Campbell-Hill Aviation Group, a Washington DC lobbyist that helped Belize securing a flight on Southwest Airline. “We spent $44,000 and the money will pay itself back in the local economy many times over,” said Hasz. Two budget airlines have put Roatan on their schedules: Canada’s West Jet in 2019 and Sun Country plans connecting its Minneapolis hub with Roatan in 2020.

All Three Roatan Families of ‘COVID-19 Dead’ Dispute the Government’s Death Classification

On Roatan with around 100,000 people there are around three deaths a day. These are deaths are due to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, accidents and homicides. After five months of forced lockdown the government insists that there is something tangible to the COVID virus than obligatory Clorox spray tunnels and masks: three dead people. The problem is that these reported COVID deaths had little to do with COVID and plenty to do with old age and severe medical conditions.

On June 30 the first reported COVID-19 death on Roatan was Gisell Leal, 19. According to Pedro Duarte, Leal’s father, Leal had contracted an acute infection of Helicobacter Pylori bacteria and was brought to the Roatan hospital seeking help. Duarte said that the Roatan hospital staff refused to treat Leal unless she submitted to a COVID-19 test which proved negative.  “She died of a heart attack because the sugar has shot-up and her pressure went down at the same time. (….) What SINAGER says is purely false,” said Duarte.

The second reported COVID-19 death on Roatan was octogenarian Catarino Santos, 88, of Juticalpa. “He has not left his house for the last four years,” said Maritza Bustillo, a family member. “He had a stroke and was sick for three years; (…) he died at home.”

The third reported COVID-19 victim according to Honduran authorities was Noemi Posadas, 58, from Oak Ridge. Noemi Posadas was tested with a rapid COVID-19 test and both times she tested negative. According to her daughter Gina Diaz, Noemi Posadas has had four years of ongoing pneumonia that got worse every time it rained. Noemi’s pneumonia got so bad that she needed oxygen and the only place where she could get it was the Roatan Public Hospital.

These reported COVID deaths had little to do with COVID and plenty to do with old age and severe medical conditions.

Despite having plenty of space in the “not with COVID-19 positive patients’ section,” the Roatan Hospital placed Noemi Posadas on oxygen in a room with four people that had tested positive for COVID-19. “They didn’t give her regular meals and diabetic have to have regular meals,” said about her mom Gina. After 48 her mother was dead.

Gina Diaz showed a 19 July 2020 death record issued by National Peoples Registry stating that her mother died of “severe pneumonia” and her underlying conditions were type two diabetes and out of control arterial hypertension. “They should put people with pneumonia and asthma in other parts of the hospital, not with people with COVID,” said Gina Diaz.

Placing a gravely ill patient that tested negative for COVID-19 next to COVID-19 positive patients is dangerous, even malicious, but the Diaz family has no recourse at pursuing action against the hospital. “They all say ‘it wasn’t my shift’ that days,” says Gina about the Roatan’s hospital staff behavior.

Roatan Hospital conducted post mortem PCR COVID-19 test on Noemi Posadas that came out positive. “The families are in the state of denial,” says Dr. Stacy Grant, director of the Roatan Hospital, about the three deaths attributed to COVID-19.

A large percentage of Roatan’s COVID tests that produce false positives and false negative cause fear and anxiety in the test-taker. Dr. Grant said that her own test came back positive before they came negative. “It all depends on a brand,” says about the accuracy of the COVID tests Dr. Grant, but declined to reveal what is the percentage of these false tests.

A person involved in COVID rapid tests fearing reaction from hospital officials reported of significant number of Roatan hospital employees taking rapid tests and using its potentially false positive results as an excuse to not go to work for two weeks.

The fact is that the spread of the virus amongst the island population is inevitable until heard immunity is reached. There is an alternative to lockdown where only people most vulnerable to COVID-19 are protected and isolated. According to mathematicians from University of Nottingham and University of Stockholm in their article in Science magazine the herd immunity for COVID-19 could be at around 43%. When a population reaches herd immunity, the virus has no way of spreading and the epidemic ends.

In mid March implemented lockdown aimed not to stop the virus from spreading, but from keeping Roatan’s scarce medical resources from being overwhelmed. Obviously, people are not falling dead from COVID-19, but Honduran politicians are using the excuse of the COVID pandemic to steal funds, liquidate business competitors and expand their political and economic power. Authorities need to justify locking down economy for five months by fudging death counts and focusing on “cases.” It is much easier to lie to someone than convince someone they have been lied to.

A growing number of Roatanians are now more aware that there is an alternative the lockdown policy that is destroying the lives and economy of Americans and people on Roatan. A group of frontline COVID-19 doctors conducted a conference on the steps of US Capitol and calling on President Trump to end the lockdown now. Twitter and youtube have removed this after it reached 15 million views and the 600 doctors that signed the petition.

Tough Times among Uncertainty, Fear and Government Restrictions

Roatan’s tourism services and hotel sectors have been hit the hardest by the March shut down. While many hotels have fired most of their employees and shut down completely some have dug in and focused on renovations and expansion. Anthony’s Key Resort is building a new seafront restaurant for their future cruise ship guests and Meridian hotel in West Bay has focused on finishing construction of condominiums.

Edward and Laura Moulder, Meridian’s owners, take the lockdown as a time to do improvements, maintenance and construction. The Meridian is a hotel and condominium development that started in 2007. Meridian has dug into their rainy-day fund, but most of Roatan’s hotels don’t have that luxury. “I am shocked how few businesses have had reserves set up,” said Laura Moulder. “We are continuing to pay employees. We feel the island is going to get worse off if we don’t pay. (…) Important to maintain the impression that Roatan is safe and organized.”

Laura Moulder believes that the key for Roatan’s recovery lies in local businesses working together at presenting the island businesses join together and market Roatan as a safe place just like Cayman Islands or Belize have been doing. She feels that recovery from the shutdown will be different than after the 2008-2009 financial crisis and Micheletti political coup that caused the island economy to retract for over two years. “The turnaround should come quite quickly,” she says. “People have been putting their lives on hold. We will see a lot of urban money leaving.  A lot of urbanites will make that move.”

That is as long as these “urban refugees” have funds to do so. With over 40 million Americans who filed for unemployment over the US shut down policy, fewer and fewer have the money to invest or travel.

There is a noticeable capital flight as Americans are ready to sell their homes in urban areas and look for safety in rural areas and the Caribbean. Turks and Caicos are benefiting from a luxury home boom as North Americans look for safe place to live, seek refuge or telecommute. This Caribbean country has cut duty and planning fees and waiving duties on construction materials. If it plays its cards right Roatan could also be in line to benefit.

Before the economic turnaround many businesses will go broke. Businesses that didn’t have a rainy-day fund aren’t doing that well. Casa Marmol, a stone finish store, closed its store at the Megaplaza Mall alongside several other businesses there.

RAS Express, an air shipping company that has been doing business since 2001 has called it quits. Gil Garcia, RAS Express’ owner, had to let go of six of his eight employees in Coxen Hole. With the airport being closed he can’t provide shipping services his business is based on. “I blame both municipalities. For the longest time Roatan was clear [of COVID-19]. They should have helped people that were stuck on the mainland instead they just came here illegally,” says Garcia. “I gave up on central government a long time ago.”

Garcia is one of the few people not afraid to criticize the almost five month long, chaotic and indiscriminate government policy of locking down healthy people and business. The isolation, fear and confusion has produced a chilling effect on the island. Many are fearful to criticize the local government officials, central government, or police.

Other than shipping dozens of COVID-19 positive police officers to the island the central government has been doing little to help Roatan handle the shutdown crisis. For one, the title registry office has been open only for two days in May, and that’s it. There is no way to proceed if someone wanted to buy or sell a property.

The next financial crisis on Roatan might come from the looming foreclosures on thousands of loans on properties and vehicles.

Some businesses are getting creative in trying to pay their staff dependent on tourists. West End’s Sundowners Bar has eight local staff and its owners resorted to doing a raffle to pay some of the staff’s $4,000 monthly salaries.  “The island has been shut down for almost four months. No cruise ships, no flights, no tourists. (…) our local staff is hurting,” wrote on social media Aaron Etches about his iconic Roatan bar.

Some businesses are actually thriving. Island Shipping, cargo shipping between Roatan and the mainland, has taken over freight business that before the shutdown was handled by the Galaxy Wave ferry.

While Galaxy Wave had practically no business since mid-March but it has managed to update much of its on-land facilities and two of its ferries. “We took time to do the general maintenance. We painted the engine room, seats, we redid lifeboats, (…) we redid the sales counter,” said Jesus Reyes, Galaxy Wave manager, adding that the operations are aimed to return in mid-August. “We are quite ready to start operating. We are just waiting what the airlines and airport want to do.”

Some businesses have managed to opened new locations, or even expand their operations. Serrano Industrial hardware store opened a long planed second location in Coxen Hole. CARNIAGRO, an agricultural supplies store, moved to a new, bigger location in French Harbour. “Now we are selling many seeds and plant products,” said Greg Norman, owner of CARNIAGRO.

While hardware stores and agricultural supplies stores are not as dependent on tourism and keep the island economy afloat, they are struggling as well. “We are doing half the sales we did in January,” said Oscar Oseguera, Madeyso’s General Sales Manager who moved to Roatan form La Ceiba several weeks ago to help run the two Madeyso stores on Roatan.

The next financial crisis on Roatan might come from the looming foreclosures on thousands of loans on properties and vehicles. While Honduras Central government have imposed a moratorium on banks not to require payments from debtors for three months that expired in mid-June. On July 1 many struggled to renegotiate terms with their Honduran lending institutions.

Banco Atlántida, Honduras’ biggest lender, owns a big stake in Roatan’s defaulted properties. “[Banco] Atlántida is not very forgiving under normal circumstances,” said Laura Moulder. For over 20 years Banco Atlántida has amassed hundreds of acres of Roatan land and properties and it is likely to take over more properties in the months to come.

After 105 Days of Lockdown Honduran Government’s SINAGER ‘Creates’ Roatan’s First COVID-19 Death

On June 30 Honduran Secretary of Health report stated that Gisell Leal, a 19-year-old Roatan woman died from COVID-19.  The truth is far from what the Honduran government and the mainland media reported about Roatan.

Pedro Duarte, Leal’s father, said that his daughter had contracted an acute infection of Helicobacter Pylori bacteria and was brought to the Roatan hospital to seek help. According to Duarte the Roatan hospital staff refused to treat Leal unless she submitted to a COVID-19 test.

If anyone died of COVID-19 on Roatan depends on who you ask.

“The results were negative,” said Duarte. “She died of a heart attack because the sugar has shot-up and her pressure went down at the same time. (….) What SINAGER says is purely false.”

Keeping track of who is sick and who dies of what on Roatan where many people know each other is relatively simple. The numbers of mainland Honduras “deaths-by-COVID” reported by SINAGER, now at 542, are much harder to challenge.

While the controlled media in US and Europe has shifted focus to demonstrations and lootings, Honduras is a few steps behind in this agenda. “There are powers interested in creating panic among the world’s population with the sole aim of permanently imposing unacceptable forms of restriction on freedoms. (…) A disturbing prelude to the realization of a world government beyond all control,” wrote Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò in his May 7 appeal.

Since the island has been locked down on March 16 Honduran government’s SINAGER has cast Roatan into a spiral of fear, economic misery, and soaring crime.The Honduran government has done nothing to protect the most vulnerable of dying from COVID-19: the old and those with compromised immune system.