Abstract
In Trinidad and Tobago, military commanders were forced to deploy personnel on the frontlines alongside police officers during the COVID-19 pandemic in an attempt to contain the spread of the virus. The armed forces were used to provide drivers to transport returning residents to quarantine facilities and nurses and paramedics to assist with the critically ill at the field hospitals. The military was also utilized to enforce lockdown regulations. The use of the military in these ways exposed personnel to the added risk of contracting the virus, all the while increasing the burdens of their service demands. While there is available scholarship on this phenomenon in Western countries, there is a dearth of similar research in the Caribbean. In light of this gap, a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews was conducted with key military personnel of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 virus on the operations of the organization. This essay provides first-hand accounts of the military of Trinidad and Tobago during the pandemic.
Introduction
Perhaps, the most dangerous national security dimension of a pandemic is its ability to throw into disorder military capabilities and important operations (Oshewolo & Nwozor, 2020).
The battle against the COVID-19 pandemic drove many countries to respond aggressively with the deployment of military forces to support their national response to the crisis. As Megerian and Cloud (2020) have shown, military assets were used to try to backstop overwhelmed hospitals and civilian medical personnel. Some countries deployed over 10,000 military personnel to assist hospitals and likewise utilized military doctors and nurses to aid civilian medical facilities (France 24, 2020). The military provided assistance in other ways, including the transportation of medical supplies and patients, the deployment of army medical logistics planners to assist civilian agencies, the transportation of healthcare workers, and the disinfection of hospitals and public spaces (Rohmensen, 2020). Armed forces have also sometimes been deployed overseas to render aid in other countries (Giuffrida & Roth, 2020).
While the utilization of armed forces during a crisis is not uncommon, the scope and span of the use of the military during the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented (Kalkman, 2019). Troops have been utilized to decrease the unfavorable results from the imposition of lockdowns, including positive relief efforts such as the distribution of meals to vulnerable people (Savage & Bachelor, 2020). But for the military, one particularly problematic deployment has been the use of troops to execute compulsory lockdowns, patrolling the streets, establishing roadblocks, and subduing movement. Such actions, deemed necessary to control the spread of the coronavirus, (Isacson, 2020), have been controversial, with the military forced to become the face of very unpopular lockdown policies.
All of these situations applied in the case of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force’s (TTDF) context. This article, while not, of course, a comprehensive evaluation of the impact experienced by the TTDF, seeks to examine some of the crucial challenges faced by the TTDF in the execution of its duties in the pandemic environment, explaining the situation that applied in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) before turning to offer some key observations gleaned from interviews with military personnel.
Methodological Approach
This study employs a qualitative approach guided by “phenomenology” to comprehend how the military command ascertained the impact of COVID-19 on the TTDF. Phenomenology highlights the personal experiences of the participants and provides the platform for the merging of individual experiences into commonalities (Creswell, 2013). To this, end we interviewed four recently retired military personnel with over 30 years of active service who served at the command level. These individuals participated in semi-structured interviews held from March 21 to April 5, 2022. The interviews consisted of 10 questions which were administered via telephone. Participants were selected from the four branches or formations in the TTDF in order to capture the experiences of all the formations.
TTDF Roles and Responsibilities
In order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of COVID-19’s impact on the TTDF, there must first be a working knowledge of the formations (or branches), their roles, and core responsibilities.
The TTDF was formed in 1962 by way of the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment (TTR) under the Defence Act 14:01 and falls under the purview of the Ministry of National Security. The TTDF is one of the largest military forces in the English-speaking Caribbean. The formations within the force are the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment (TTR), whose mission is to contribute to the maintenance of a safe and secure environment for the well-being of the people of T&T and to assist in the promotion of hemispheric and international security and development, with a well-equipped force, trained in a broad range of disciplines and actively involved in community development. The T&T Coast Guard, whose mission is to defend the sovereign good of the Republic of T&T by providing on a continuous basis, quality service for security and safety within its maritime boundaries and in any other areas of responsibility agreed to by the state to fulfill its international obligations. The Trinidad and Tobago Air Guard (TTAG), provides aerial surveillance and search and rescue support within the Republic of T&T and in any other area of responsibility agreed to by the state to fulfill its international obligations. The TTDF Reserves (TTDFR), is a highly professional, well-trained, combat-ready formation that responds effectively in support of the regular forces of the Republic of T&T and the national community (Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of National Security, 2020).
The main responsibilities of the TTDF are stated as (a) defend the sovereign good of the Republic of T&T, (b) give aid to the civil power in maintaining law and order, (c) render humanitarian aid and disaster relief (HADR), and (d) assisting in the prevention of illegal trafficking. In 2012 and 2013, TTR was joined with the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS), to patrol high-crime areas in the hope of reducing crime and gun/gang violence. TTDF’s unified umbrella organization is also responsible for the management of the two Specialised Youth Service Programmes (SYSP), with the term “Specialised” referring to the military-based nature of the programs: the Civilian Conservation Corps and Military-Led Academic Training (Specialised Youth Service Programmes, 2023).
In accordance with Section 5(2) of the Defence Act, Chapter 14:01 of the Laws of T&T, the units of the Defence Force are charged with the defense of T&T and such other duties as may from time to time be defined by the Defence Council. Since the ratification of the Defence Act, these other duties have never been defined nor promulgated. Instead, units of the Defence Force have, over the years, simply just assumed various roles largely out of a sense of civic duty and have adopted these roles as part of their operational responsibilities without any clear policy directives. The de facto responsibilities of the TTDF are to cooperate with and assist the civil power in maintaining law and order, assist the civil authorities in times of crisis or disaster, perform ceremonial functions on behalf of the state, provide search and rescue services in keeping with national requirements and international agreements, assist in the prevention of trafficking in narcotics and other illegal goods, safeguard and preserve the living and non-living resources in the waters under national jurisdiction, monitor the safety of shipping in national waters, pollution monitoring, and countermeasures, assist in the prevention of illegal immigration, and, assist in the development of the national community (Trinidad and Tobago Military Doctrine, 2017). The national challenges brought by the pandemic meant stretching these directives.
COVID-19 and the Use of the Military in T&T
On March 12, 2020, the Ministry of Health (MoH) for T&T, reported the country’s first COVID-19 case. In light of this, on Tuesday, March 17, 2020, the Minister of National Security met with the leaders of T&T’s Defence and Protective Services, as part of the government’s response to COVID-19. The dialog facilitated a multi-agency approach in dealing with the issues relating to COVID-19 and the maintenance of a safe and secure environment for T&T. With a population of more than 1.3 million people, data from the MoH (2020–2021), showed that T&T by May 2021 had registered 15,375 infections, 5,214 of them active, and 265 deaths. Consequently, the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency on May 15 to control the rise of COVID-19 cases and related deaths (Reuters, 2021). In light of this, 126 members of the TTDFR were called out by the President of the Republic of T&T for a period of 92 days. This was done to strengthen the TTDF’s capability to carry out its core functions and to provide operational support to the TTPS during the state of emergency (Loop News, 2021a, 2021b).
COVID-19 had an oversized impact on the military of T&T. As Participant #1 explained, “We have lost a good amount of service personnel to COVID-19 and I think that even the loss of one is too much.” As Tack (2020) correctly notes, even when military personnel escaped becoming gravely ill with the virus, quarantine measures could still seriously impact military operations, especially with the need for deploying forces to the frontlines of extensive COVID-19 outbreaks. For T&T, an example of this was when several soldiers based at the Regiment Camp at Signal Hill, Tobago on August 26, 2020 were quarantined for 14 days after coming in contact with an infected colleague (Loop News, 2020).
One area of considerable controversy has been the use of troops to enforce mandatory lockdowns by patrolling the streets, constructing roadblocks, and curbing movement. These measures, which aimed to stem the spread of the coronavirus, have been adopted in many nations across the world (Isacson, 2020). In T&T, on Wednesday, June 2, 2021 members of the Air Guard were deployed to conduct mobile patrols in the Eastern Districts of Trinidad during the nightly curfew of 9:00 pm—5:00 am doing its part to provide “Service above and Beyond” (TTAG, 2021).
Troop deployment has been employed to decrease the negative results of the lockdowns and the severe economic hardships by coordinating meal deliveries to vulnerable families and otherwise supporting food initiatives (Savage & Bachelor, 2020). This was also done by the TTDF which collaborated with the Foundation for the Enhancement of Life to coordinate the distribution of food in June 2021, providing support to numerous NGO’s and minimizing ongoing difficulties experience widely during the global pandemic. To facilitate this process TTDF, provided labor power to assist in the distribution of food and other donated items to community and church groups across the country (Loop News, 2021b).
One primary incentive for deploying armed forces in response to the COVID-19 outbreak is the reality that armed forces have distinct capabilities that civilian health agencies too often lack. The armed forces have specialized expertise and available resources that can supplement civilian responses in rendering help. Medical centers and services can simply be swamped during pandemic outbreaks, while armed forces are adept at quickly mobilizing much-needed medical resources.
The armed services are similarly well-position to coordinate relief efforts in environments of uncertainty and stress. Moreover, they may carry out acts that support health initiatives but fall outside the purview of health organizations. As such the COVID-19 crisis created a clear need for military support (Watterson & Kamradt-Scott, 2016) An example of this in T&T’s reality appeared on Thursday, May 27, 2021, when the TTDF provided air support via the TTAG aircraft AG215 to collect 6,000 donated AstraZeneca vaccines from the Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. These were delivered to the tarmac of the Piarco International Airport (Ministry of National Security, 2021) and transported by the military to waiting arms from there.
In responding to the pandemic many Latin American governments followed the European example (Ortiz, 2020), placing restrictions on social life to stop the escalation of infections and assigning responsibility for enforcement on the police and the armed forces. This practice was evident in Chile, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and in T&T. Argentine scholar Fabián Calle has shown that the military used the fight against the pandemic to boost their political leverage, winning more political influence and with this, more funding for the military. In T&T, this meant that the Ministry of National Security secured for the TTDF and TTDFR an added allocation of $0.4 million for each branch in the fiscal year 2021 to procure passenger buses to assist in COVID-19 related transportation services (Office of the Parliament, 2021). The armed forces across Latin America and the Caribbean saw their mission widen, but in exchange for the taking on of new tasks, militaries won both broad acceptance of the domestic presence of the military to handle missions like this as well as the added funding to make all this possible (Sewell, 2016).
TTDF’s COVID-19 Pandemic Operations
Armed forces have great resources and advanced competency when operating in stressful situations. Hence, as Kalkman and De Waard (2017) have argued, turning to the military presents a fast and really irresistible tool for leaders to use to attack sudden nationwide problems (see Figure 1).
According to a survey conducted by DCAF in 2020, the armed forces in nearly all nations worldwide have been deployed to assist in the fight against COVID-19, supplying logistical and administrative support, enforcing lockdown regulations, and transporting the infected and the critically ill to quarantine facilities or to intensive care units. Likewise, in addition to traditional military functions such as combat readiness, disaster relief, maritime patrols, and peacekeeping operations, the TTDF has also been integrated into several non-traditional mission sets, including but not limited to support to the police for the maintenance of public order, critical infrastructure protection, and border security. The TTDF constructed additional spaces for socially displaced persons at the Centre for Socially Displaced Persons in Port-of-Spain. This project was spearheaded by the Ministry of Social Development and Family Services, partnered with the T&T armed forces. Many units, civilian and military successfully worked together, coordinated by the TTDF COVID-19 Response Coordinating Center, and assisted by the Corp of Engineers of the TTR, and along with members of the TTDFR. Their work was successful, constructing rooms, bathrooms, toilet facilities, and washrooms to ensure that socially displaced persons were properly accommodated and protected during this pandemic. These disparate government agencies met the challenge of the moment.
In April 2021 TTDF Force Task Force with 50 members total, departed for St. Vincent and the Grenadines to carry out HADR operations due to the eruptions of the La Soufriére Volcano. Task Force members also coordinated the loading of the cargo of donated relief items on board the Galleons Passage.
TTDF conducted joint operations with the TTPS and the Immigration Division with oversight provided by the National Operation Fusion Centre. TTDF also provided medics in full personal protection equipment to support quarantine field hospitals and drivers to assist with transporting returning nationals in TTDF buses to secured quarantine facilities.
TTDF provided labor power through members of Charlie Company, 1st Infantry Battalion, at the Cruise Ship Complex, Port of Spain, to assist with security operations during the repatriation of Venezuelan nationals back to Venezuela in July 2021 via the Venezuelan ferry Paraguana 1.
TTDF, supported by its fourth formation, the TTDFR provided personnel to work at another step-down facility in Couva for recovering COVID-19 patients. The TTDFR continues to work tirelessly in support of the other formations and by extension T&T in the fight against COVID-19.
TTDF provided 22 two-person teams of Defence Force members to assist with patrols. Additionally, soldiers were also providing 24-hour security to all quarantine facilities, with six to eight members at work on any given shift.
TTDF partnered with North West Regional Health Authority to pilot its first drive through vaccination site at Heliport Chaguaramas.
Overall then, the TTDF was pushed increasingly into non-traditional roles, something that has proven to be a major hurdle for military leaders. Military authorities felt overwhelmed by new demands placed on them. Contrary to its counterpart in the USA military where there are clear legislative guidelines that specifically outline the roles of the military and corresponding internal security units, such as the police, no such safeguard currently exists within T&T. Therefore, it is highly plausible that additional obligations will be placed on the shoulders of the TTDF by the political directorate which perceives the TTDF as high in competency and capability and low in industrial relations resistance, and greater level its general level of goodwill with the population (Ganesh, 2021).
Effects of COVID-19 on the Military
During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (EUROMIL, 2020) personnel of the armed forces grappled with varied challenges: shortages of protective equipment; long working hours, harming their work-life balance; a lack of recognition of COVID-19 as an occupational disease; cancellation of training, affecting force preparedness; and a complete lack of training for the newly requested tasks. All of these problems fostered mental health concerns for military personnel (EUROMIL, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic directly affected the operational readiness and capabilities of the military as members, like the general population, were also testing positive, drastically impeding unit deployments (Starr, 2020). The deployment and transfer of personnel were of course impacted as some personnel became subject to quarantine (Chazan, 2020; DCAF, 2020). The global pandemic has imposed some permanent changes to military operations and engagements, and some of the measures taken to combat COVID-19 will have deep-rooted effects on how the forces operate (see Figure 2). Service women and men have had to adjust to the “new normal,” balancing the duties of protecting the nation with those of trying to maintain their family life.
Command’s Perspectives on the Impact of the Pandemic
The Impact of Mental Health
One of the things we have to start looking at[,] which is new to the organization[,] is the mental health aspect. A lot of personnel couldn’t deal with their love ones contracting COVID and passing and being buried swiftly without closure. Being an essential service our pay never stopped, however, some of the military personnel spouses lost their jobs and they would have lived their lives … [counting on] both incomes [.] Now it’s only one [.] That affected service personnel as they couldn’t cope mentally to make ends meet (Respondent #2, 2022).
Family Life
Schools were affected, daycare was closed so service personnel had family issues as children were at home and needed to be properly supervised. This affected how we tasked people all in support of making sure that their families were safe and taken care of [.] That is why you were only required to come into camp when you were required to (Respondent #1, 2022).
These issues impacted greatly to start with once their homes were not good their performances were impacted tremendously. Some of them took chances leaving their kids at home and were stopping work on a regular basis to call home to check up on them who were left virtually unsupervised. This would have affected production within the TTDF’s daily operation (Respondent #4, 2022).
Promotion/Courses/Training
It impacted on persons who could not finish their courses for promotion and you couldn’t change their ages so a lot of service persons had to retire at the lower rank rather than going to the next level (Respondent #3, 2022).
Before the pandemic, we were running our promotional classes this involved people being physically in one space or area, due to the pandemic a lot of the professional courses were not done and we were forced to find new ways of conducting business. Permission also had to be sought from the Ministry of Health for recruit training which was very difficult due to the fact that the TTPS experienced a high level of COVID-19 infections with its recruits. So TTDF had to come up with a template that would have [to] stand the test of scrutiny. If we couldn’t recruit, then the attrition rate would have a negative effect on manpower resources as people were leaving with no replacement the domino effect was evident (Respondent #2, 2022).
In terms of training, recruit training had to be adjusted and recruit could not go home as they and the training crew were kept in a bubble for the duration of the training. Normally after six weeks there is a weekend at home … This was impacted. All military training was affected, for example something as simple as physical training, we could not go out the gate to do physical training. Everything had to be done with some degree of isolation to avoid exposure and infecting others (Respondent #1, 2022).
Operations/Ceremonial Duties
It affected military parades and funerals. Mentally it took a toll as brothers in arms especially those lost to COVID were laid to rest in a manner that was just not normal. Military funeral service were scaled down to a smaller version. At one point caskets were not draped with the national flag as the flag ceremony would mean that you had to be close. This impacted on the emotional stability of others. I have had a few encounters with this first hand (Respondent #2, 2022).
Manpower Resources
With the pandemic we had to limit the amount of persons being in camp at any one point in time. This was done to avoid others getting sick, so there was a minimal amount of persons in the camp. Within the TTDF no day is promised, as on any given day anything can pop up which requires manpower so with minimum persons in camp it was a risk because if any emergency came up we would have been in dire strait to get persons (which would have been carried out using the call up system). That in itself had its own danger because there is no guarantee that calling somebody not in the camp that will respond by telephone. So there was a dependency on people answering their phones. Chances are that they would have also been exposed because we don’t know where and with whom they interacted with. So, TTDF faced a touch and go situation we in command position had to find ways and means to ensure that we were able to make our commitment, we were under pressure (Respondent #1, 2022).
There was abuse of the system by some persons who were calling regular[ly] over and over to say they were exposed. Each time this was done we had to tell them stay away which were long periods which placed the manpower resources under tremendous strain. In such a volatile environment we still had to do patrols and sometimes persons who were for duty will call and said that they were rostered for duty that day but they were exposed which means that someone had to come in to fill their shoes. There was also a transportation issue as persons living in certain areas were affected by not getting to work on time (Respondent #3, 2022).
During the pandemic there was reduced office staff as these offices were small so social distancing was an issue. Because of this, persons could not be given annual leave as quarantine affected manpower. In some instances, persons were called back from leave to fill the gaps. Manpower resources were also affected badly by non-vaccination. For example, persons who had to worked at the Prime Minister’s Residence, President’s House, community pools, and the Interagency Task Force needed to be vaccinated as such the 30% group who were vaccinated had to do most of the details. We have lost a good amount of service personnel to COVID who were unvaccinated and I think even one death is too much (Respondent #2, 2020).
Level of Readiness
TTDF is a unit that no matter the responsibility we get it done. We were deeply stretched, however we had certain demands coming from national security we supplied persons for the parallel medical system as we provided manpower to assist with testing, and other tasks and at the same time we had to carry out our daily duties and responsibility. There was an SOE and we had to provide persons to work alongside police officers. For the last 30 years that I have served we always find a way to be ready however, we were concerned with Burn Out as we would have had a few and had to devise plans to deal with it by calling out the Reserves who as always supports the TTDF credibly every time they are needed (Respondent #2, 2022).
Duties were affected, training was affected, manpower was affected which impacted on the readiness. Members were also testing positive and a few of them died from COVID-19. Assistance was also rendered to other countries with manpower this depleted the pool as some people came back exposed and tested positive with the virus. These persons were also in quarantine for a long while and we were already short on manpower which is tied to our readiness (Respondent #1, 2022).
Lessons Learned
The experience coming out of this pandemic in my opinion that we need to always be in a state of readiness, as we need to up our game in some of the professional areas. We need a SWAT analysis to examine our weaknesses and our strengths. I personally did not have one done before I left. We were forced to engage social media and engaging such platforms are critical for our survival. The other issue is the importance of succession planning as the inability to utilize this as a key pillar to support continuity in the TTDF affected departments and tasking. In some instances, the only person with the skill had to be quarantined and there was no one to stand in which negatively impacted production as some things came to a grinding halt (Respondent #2, 2022).
TTDF is a micro community of T&T thus, in a national pandemic like this I think the DF needs to make sure that it has the facilities to protect its personnel by having them living in camp this could not be done as infrastructure is woefully inadequate. We are the property of the state thus the state needs to make sure that its property is protected so that it can serve its purpose when needed. Interestingly, when you looked back at Chaguaramas during WWII a military village was well established. There was a hospital, cinema, sport field, accommodation, post exchange, everything that service personnel would have needed, so you could have kept your personnel in a real bubble, where the manpower that is needed is protected and avoid the risk of spreading the virus. The USA military left everything inclusive of equipment and infrastructure and within a short while everything was looted. Preservation of these thing would have placed the TTDF in a much better position today (Respondent #1, 2022).
Changing the Military
The landscape of the military environment continues to transform, and I am not sure that there is an understanding as to why we choose to serve as individuals more and more are only concerned about themselves. For example, a greater portion of the DF chose to stay unvaccinated. I know some of those personally who have died in the process. I feel again I am old school. This is a challenge that is beyond the TTDF. Let me explain there is an attestation form that one signs as a recruit which asked if you are willing to be vaccinated or revaccinated. Ironically almost everyone signed as being willing but they are now going contrary. So it means that a number of things need to take place with the Defence Act. COVID 19 has definitely created a reshaping of the TTDF forever. Thus, the framers of the constitution clearly did not consider anything about the TTDF and its roles and function as it relates to modernization and globalization, this in my view has our hands tied as everything now is infringing on one’s constitutional right. The military in my view is being civilianized, when you joined the military and sign on the dotted line you are now state property. Will there be a need for the TTDF in future years? One burdened with the choice of non-conformity and litigation? (Respondent #2, 2022).
I don’t think that we will move forward or change the way we do things positively because we have a culture and the culture is enshrined to certain people, certain individuals and I think because we made it thus far, they would not change the way we do things significantly. So, the drastic meaningful change that we are looking for I don’t think that it will happen. For example, in terms of the 30% vaccination rate, TTDF operates on instructions and the thought process is that individuals in the TTDF if they are not instructed to do something and it is not mandatory then they will not do it and more and more this is impacted by archaic legislation (Respondent #3, 2022).
Recommendations by Command
There are too much vagueness and ambiguity in the policies that guides the TTDF, due to this there is the inability to act, as such, the necessary amendments need to be initiated especially to the Defence Act. There is also disjoint in my view in the dissemination of information to the citizenry reference the contributions of the TTDF. TTDF had a high involvement in this pandemic where we partnered with a number of agencies to render aid to the citizens of T&T, especially in the SOE we worked with the police, and the parallel health care system providing EMTs and nurses. We are far from shining shoes as alluded by a journalist. We are not getting enough PR our roles and functions keep changing drastically but our relevance to T&T is down played (Respondent #2, 2022).
Maslow’s Law of motivation and needs speak about self-actualization. Can one really self-actualize in the TTDF? We need to look more in depth into mental health and welfare issues of the men and women of the TTDF and provide the services and create the space and environment for this critical aspect of military survival to take place (Respondent #3, 2022).
Revise training to suit the demands of the ever changing roles and environment as we are thrust into more non-traditional. For example, desktop exercises that will facilitate the softer side of Humanitarian and Disaster Relief (HADR) and social service delivery, as on numerous occasions the TTDF are among the first to respond and has to fill the gaps for those entities who are supposed to be at the forefront (Respondent #1, 2022).
There is a serious infrastructural issue, there are multiple bases but no adequate support. There needs to be adequate funding to facilitate the maintenance and upkeep of resources. This needs to be addressed as service personnel spend most of their time on bases which should be a home away from home (Respondent #4, 2022).
Sensitization of the wider T&T to clear up the misconception of TTDF as only shining shoes among other issues. There needs to be a greater awareness campaign as to the real purpose of the TTDF so that potentially the best candidates can be attracted that will be adaptable and thereby add value to the organization (Respondent #1, 2022).
Conclusions
Military readiness depends on troops’ willingness to comply with the instructions given because commanders need to know whether everyone in their unit is deployable and adaptable. Compliance also indicates a service member’s maturity and comprehension of leadership roles and command’s intent and also whether a service member will follow other lawful orders (Cohen, 2021). Consequently, TTDF leaders should move quickly to comprehensively study the problem of restructuring during special conditions and devise ahead of time suitable courses of action. Whatever the final structure is decided upon, it is likely to be transient as the organization navigates these turbulent times. Ultimately the choice is clear, the TTDF must adapt, change, or die (Ganesh, 2021).
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.