Carter: Not yet in the clear

It would be unwise of Government to ease the current restrictions despite Barbados not recording a positive test for coronavirus in the past six days, COVID-19 Czar Richard Carter has declared.

He is adamant that as long as there are still live cases of the respiratory illness on the island it means we are still under threat.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Carter said while the string of negative tests was a positive sign he was still very concerned that 45 people were still infected.

Carter said: “I will say, however, that six days without cases, while it is encouraging it does not matter really as much as the fact that we currently still have over 40 live cases in Barbados that we are managing. As long as you have live cases in your country you have an epidemic that is going on.… One case is all it takes to spark a spike.

“There can be no immediate contemplation or consideration of lifting restrictions right now. We have to continue to be on our guard and it will be far too early to be talking about the relaxation of the restrictions. One live case means that you have to be considering and dealing and trying to get to zero. Essentially that is our goal, to get to zero cases in Barbados.

“We don’t know how many or whether there are other cases that have not been diagnosed within the community. We are trying our best through the contact tracing and through the surveillance that we are undertaking to detect and identify whether there are any cases but we can never be 100 per cent sure outside of testing every single person.”

Carter stressed that over 2.5 million diagnosed cases of COVID-19 worldwide started with one case.

But he pointed out that public health officials in Barbados would be the ones responsible for advising Government on whether those restrictions ought to be lifted.

“So the public health officials will advise the Government when it is appropriate to lift any restrictions that have been put in place.

“In all of this we have been following the advice of the public health officials in Barbados and they have advised the Government in relation to when it is necessary to impose restrictions and they will guide the Government as to when it is appropriate to lift them,” the Czar noted.

Minister of Health Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic announced yesterday that having acquired 2,800 swabs and 27,000 testing kits, health authorities are moving to ramp up COVID-19 testing.

He also warned that Barbados was not yet out in the clear.

“I want to reiterate that although this is indeed very encouraging for all of us it is not a sign that we are out of the woods. We must not drop our guard. We must not drop the level of defense that we are putting up against this enemy,” Lt. Col. Bostic said.
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb