Doctors suggest longer curfew hours

While it fully supports Government’s decision to impose another curfew given the significant increase in COVID-19 cases, the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP) would have preferred to see even more restrictions imposed.

In fact, president Dr Lynda Williams said the association had lobbied for an earlier curfew as well as additional restrictions on weekends.

Faced with 90 positive cases within the last week, Minister of Health and Wellness Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic announced Sunday that a daily 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew would take effect from Tuesday and would continue for two weeks, in the first instance.

He said during that time, summer camps, fetes, parties and full contact sports would be prohibited, while a maximum of 100 persons would be allowed to attend church, weddings and funerals.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Dr Williams said the restrictions were necessary to help contain the spread of the respiratory virus which has so far killed 48 people here and more than four million worldwide.

She said BAMP was of the view that tougher restrictions might be necessary, given the circumstances.

“We are part of the decision-making body that helps to look at everything and decide where we need to go. We are in agreement because of the steepness and the rise of the curve. The rise of cases is happening pretty quickly so we just want to curb activity, curb movement, curb gatherings before it gets worse,” Dr Williams said.

“Any restriction of movement that you put on a population is going to affect the amount of gathering that is possible, it is going to affect the amount of activities that go on…. There are people who gather for nocturnal activities and any restriction that you put is going to limit the amount of interactions that humans are able to have.

“Truthfully, we would have liked to have seen more restrictions than were announced. We would have preferred to go harder quicker and then pull back from our position. The question arose as to whether or not just a night time curfew was enough, whether or not we needed an earlier curfew, whether or not we need to have intermittent weekend curfews, all of those kinds of things were under consideration,” the BAMP president added.

Dr Williams stressed that the most recent restrictions were not a knee-jerk reaction to the number of COVID-19 cases.

She said given the passing of Hurricane Elsa a week and a half ago, there was an expectation there would be an increase in cases.

Minister Bostic revealed on Sunday that the country’s positivity rate had increased by a full percentage point to 1.6 per cent and the rate of infection had doubled to 38 infections per 100 000 people.

“The problem is that everybody is focused on a single number, but really and truly it is what is happening over time. It’s not necessarily what’s happening on a single day, or a single cluster, or a single group of people. It’s what has been happening over time, what’s been happening in the last two weeks and what can be expected given what has happened the last two weeks.

“Say you had a hurricane where people may have gathered together or you had some sporting event, then you can expect there will be more cases. So you project and you build a model and then you act based on those projections, so it looks like a knee jerk but it really is not,” Dr Williams maintained.

The BAMP president said Government’s actions were not unique and the “pushing forward and pulling back” of restrictions was a practice that had been implemented by other countries around the world. (randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)