YOU have a weapon against COVID-19.

Yes, you. And it’s a weapon you should not think twice about using.

The weapon is nothing more than your telephone – and you can use it to call the police when rule breakers hold social gatherings that they shouldn’t.

You might think this is snitching. It isn’t. It’s reporting a public health threat.

Think of it this way – if you looked out and saw a neighbour’s house burning, would it be snitching to call for a fire engine? Of course not. It would be a responsible action that could save lives.

Calling for help is the right thing to do when lives are at risk – and that’s exactly what gatherings are doing at this time, in the middle of a pandemic that has seen another 151 confirmed cases just yesterday in The Bahamas.

Ask yourself this as you sit inside your home this long lockdown weekend – do you still want to be sitting there at Christmas with this virus unchecked? As COVID-19 sweeps unchecked across The Bahamas, killing our people and our economy? Of course not.

Rules breakers should not be able to rely on neighbours not wanting to cause trouble while they go ahead and hold events that could become super spreaders, infecting more people and continuing this wave that we are struggling under.

The decent thing to do is to think of the partygoers’ parents, their grandparents, their relatives with vulnerable conditions – and call the hotline to bring the police, and to send people packing, hopefully before they have a chance to become infected.

The hotline number is 702-9967. Remember it. Call it.

And if the police don’t come running? Well, call us. We’ll be sure to cover it and hold police to account if they don’t deal with it.

How many more nights do you want to be cooped up at home? How many more weekends do you want to have to go through lockdowns? How many more weeks do you want to be worrying over whether you have a job because the economy can’t get moving again because of this virus?

Those holding parties and gatherings right now are being selfish. They don’t care about you. So why should you cover for them?

You have a weapon. Use it.

Was Keva murdered?

We must be very careful that a case of a woman whose body was found washed ashore on a beach in Eleuthera last month is not dismissed too readily.

Family members are concerned following the death of Keva Cash, aged just 25, that it is being too quickly ruled to be nothing more than a drowning.

Police have reportedly told the family they have found no signs of foul play – and an official from the Central Detective Unit told The Tribune that the death has been ruled a drowning.

But wait a minute, that’s the job of a coroner to declare.

The family has legitimate concerns – Keva’s teeth were all knocked out and she had a broken jaw. She had bruising on her skin.

More than that, one man is alleged to have told Keva’s mother as she was looking for her that she was “by the beach, I put her to sleep for good”.

There are serious questions here and they should not be dismissed so readily.

We would hate to think too that because Keva was a woman with the mind of a child that her case was not being taken seriously because of that. Those with disabilities already suffer enough setbacks in our society in life, that should not be the case in death too.

So we call on the coroner to conduct a proper investigation. If there is no foul play, let that stand up to the light of a proper probe – and let us not be haunted by the prospect of a potential murder being swept under the carpet by investigators who just can’t be bothered to find out the truth.