‘Step up COVID-19 testing as protocols ease’

Doctors Friday urged Government to step up testing for the coronavirus, amid a further easing of restrictions they claim is fraught with risk.

Barbados Association of Medical Professionals (BAMP) president Dr Lynda Williams has also cautioned Barbadians against falling into a false sense of security as bars, gyms, worship halls and schools, all prepare to reopen.

Despite a slump in recorded cases, the country’s testing numbers are still underwhelming and the monitoring process remains unstructured,Dr Williams, an epidemiologist, declared.

And with one in four Barbadians having received just the first of two vaccine doses, Dr Williams made clear that Barbadians are far from protected.

Dr Williams told Barbados TODAY: “We can’t call the population protected, because for the population to be protected, we believe that we would have to get about 70 per cent of the total population vaccinated and since you are not vaccinating children, that would have to be a much larger percentage of the adult population than 25 to 30 per cent, which means there are lots of people unprotected.

“And the fact is that we’ve had one dose, it’s not like we’ve had two doses.

“And because we are talking mostly about a very transmissible variant, it is still very possible to transmit that variant here. So people who have had one vaccination should not feel that they can now go and conquer the world, because that is not how it is.”

On Thursday evening, Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced significant ease in the curfews and restrictions that kept hundreds out of work for as many as three months.

Too young to receive the jab, primary and secondary students, are set to return to the classroom in less than a week.

As a result, Dr Williams has underscored the need for testing, to get ahead of any potential future outbreaks.

She said: “One of our major concerns has always been the number of persons being tested. You are testing three or four hundred people out of a potential population of 300,000 and it is not a structured process.

“It is just based on people either presenting symptoms or wanting to know their status. It is entirely possible that you are not really capturing sufficient people to comment on the status of the country.”

The BAMP president further noted that with tourism down 97 per cent, the main concern is about COVID-19 spread within the country.

But she added that in addition to other “risks” is the possibility of an influx of volcano evacuees from St. Vincent and Grenadines whom Barbadians should be open to assist.

But in St Vincent, Deputy Director of the Agency for Public Information Nadia Slater told evacuees seeking to board the cruise ships berthed in Kingstown for Barbados and other neighbouring islands that they must be vaccinated, even if it is just the first round of the vaccine.

BAMP’s Dr Williams said: “Until we get the testing numbers up, the only real way to mitigate the spread of COVID is with strict adherence to the public health protocols and I mean strict.”

“It has to be really monitored because what has been keeping us so far is the fact that Barbadians have been relatively good and we need to give the public kudos.

“The truth is that you have to be able to balance and you must be able to give business some ease, but at the same time you have to be swift to change if the situation changes.”

(kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)