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Bostic says country prepared for new COVID-19 cases once flights resume

by Randy Bennett
4 min read
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Barbados’ Minister of Health expects the country to record new cases of COVID-19 once commercial flights resume, but he says the country is ready to deal with them.

And, if new cases are recorded, they will not trigger any immediate lockdown of the country.

Minister of Health and Wellness Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic said he has full faith in the island’s protocols and contingency plans and believes Barbados is much better prepared to deal with any new COVID-19 cases to the island.

However, he has admitted that if the island’s resources are stretched due to an influx of cases, decisive action will be taken by authorities.

Last Friday Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Minister of Tourism Kerrie Symmonds outlined strict protocols which will have to be adhered to by visitors to the island.

These include the taking of a COVID-19 PCR Antigen test 72 hours before travel to Barbados, the conversion of the Concorde Experience at the Grantley Adams International Airport to a testing facility and the use of several hotels on the island as satellite testing facilities.

However, those protocols were widely criticized by Barbadians, who maintained that more should be done to help limit the spread of COVID-19 from visitors.

But Bostic defended Government’s decisions, saying they were thorough.

“Our protocols have been well thought out and well-considered. We engaged persons in terms of helping us to reach where we are right now and there are no plans to change our protocols. We are satisfied that our protocols are strong, but as things develop and we have to make any changes to those protocols that is what planning is all about. That is what we have been doing for the past several months, adjusting to developing situations and so we are prepared to do so,” Bostic assured.

“If and when we get some cases that will not trigger a lockdown as we did not even lockdown when we had our first 10 to 15 cases. We have some figures that we have been playing with but I’m not going to give out those figures because it has nothing to do with figures on their own, but what is happening with the development of COVID-19 and our capacity to respond to those developments.”

The Minister said he expected new cases of COVID-19 on the island once commercial traffic resumed.

However, he said that was not a reason to panic.

“There will be cases and we have had five repatriated cases and that is not an issue. We have the capacity to deal with cases. We are stronger than we were before, we have a lot more experience, we have a lot more at our disposal to deal with whatever comes and we will deal with the science and we will operate in the same way we did before we had our first case.

“We have war gamed this situation to use a military term and we know there are some tipping points we are looking at that will determine certain actions to be taken. But even with those estimates, with those figures, we are not holding ourselves slaves to any figures or any statistics…” Bostic maintained.

“There are a lot of things that are at play here and we know the capacity that we have and there are also contingency plans as well to utilize other facilities if that becomes necessary, but all of that will be taken into account as the situation unfolds.”

Bostic explained that the COVID-19 pandemic presented threats to Barbados’ health, social and economic fabric.

He said the economic threat was significant as it had the power to destabilize Government’s response to social and health issues.

“That is why we are doing what we are doing because we are faced with a multi-dimensional problem,” he noted.

Bostic said he was confident Government would be successful in the fight against COVID-19 as it had increased institutional facilities for quarantine and isolation, increased testing capacity and availability of kits and swabs and increased support from the private sector.
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb

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