Local COVID-19 protocols get passing grade from professor

Strict protocols at the ports of entry and continuous widescale testing have significantly lowered the chances of a second wave of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crippling the country, chair of the University of the West Indies (UWI)’s COVID-19 task force has suggested.

While Professor Clive Landis has not ruled out the possibility of small outbreaks in the future, he described Barbados as having some of the strictest entry protocols “anywhere in the world”, and expressed confidence that authorities will continue to manage the situation prudently.

In early July, Barbados joined a number of Caribbean countries in welcoming commercial flights after a first wave of COVID-19 forced shutdowns that halted economic activity.

While local authorities appear to have detected most imported cases at the borders, community surges in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and The Bahamas have resulted in internal shutdowns and fresh bans on international travel.

“I am very comfortable that the protocols which are in place at the airport for high, low and medium-risk countries are appropriate and effective up to this point, based on all of the evidence. Of course, we always need to follow up and examine the evidence, but up to now, the evidence suggests that the protocols are effective in identifying possible imported cases, either at the airport or in quarantine,” the Professor of Cardiovascular Research told Barbados TODAY.

“To some extent, you do expect that in an epidemic like this, there will be clusters [of cases], but that doesn’t mean that you can’t handle it. There have been a lot of successful countries like Taiwan, Iceland and Singapore. They are not COVID-free, but they are managing whatever cluster outbreaks might happen and they are maintaining containment and I am very confident that Barbados can do the same,” Landis added.

Visitors from high-risk countries are required to present a verified negative COVID-19 test, followed by a week of quarantine and a second test from local authorities. Medium-risk visitors must also present a negative test and then be monitored for a week, while low-risk arrivals benefit from unhindered entry.  In some cases, passengers who sit close to infected airplane passengers have also been asked to quarantine for at least one week before being retested.

When asked to respond to some criticism about potential loopholes in the public health protocols, Professor Landis replied: “If you want to prevent all cases from being imported, just close your borders. It’s very simple. However, if you want to re-open your economy in a safe way to stimulate economic activity, you have to balance those two factors.

“And so, you have to accept that there is some risk that you could be importing cases, but the point is that you want to manage that risk and that is why we have classified countries into high, medium and low-risk with different protocols for each.

“Of course, that always needs to be monitored, and we have been monitoring and updating these protocols if and when information changes on the status of different countries. So I think it is very objectively done, I think it is appropriate, and the evidence thus far suggests that it is working,” Landis added.

The professor added that a handful of new cases still being recorded are a testament to the success of continued widescale testing. In fact, he lauded the over 14,000 tests conducted here as an “international benchmark” relative to the country’s population, and encouraged authorities to maintain and/or increase the country’s testing capacity.
(kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)