Changes coming

Minister of Health Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic is satisfied that the necessary travel protocols are currently in place.

And while he understands the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners’ (BAMP) concern over the need for stricter measures to be in place, the minister said Government was sticking to its guns.

Speaking to members of the media following the handover of medical supplies to the ministry this morning, Bostic said changes were coming to the protocols placed on visitors to the island.

COVID-19 Czar Richard Carter recently announced that visitors coming from the US and other countries deemed high-risk would be quarantined for seven days on arrival to Barbados, retested for COVID-19 and monitored daily before being allowed to move freely.

“At the moment the protocols for persons coming into Barbados are being amended and that process should be finished by the end of the day I believe.

At this point I can say to you that the seven-day period really has to do with the incubation period of the virus. We capture the person on the third or second test, that is part of the system. There is a scientific way of doing this that we are adopting. It is nothing unusual and we have the mechanisms in place to be able to deal with persons who might be missed on the first test because it depends on when they actually were infected by the virus.

“So the seven-day period at the moment is what we are working with. We have the right to extend as we see fit and that will depend on the second test that the person takes around day seven,” Bostic said.

Earlier this week in a press release, BAMP said there was a need for the current travel protocols to be strengthened.

Among its suggestions was for visitors from medium and high-risked countries to be quarantined for 14 days.

However, Bostic said while he had read the release, he was confident Government was making the best decisions.

“I want to assure Barbadians that we are not operating in a vacuum. We’ve been guided throughout this process by the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization and the Caribbean Public Health Agency. We have adopted a collaborative approach, which also includes BAMP, but at the end of the day we also have some public health officers who are very experienced, technically qualified and knowledgeable and know exactly what they are doing and they provide all the advice that is required to me,” the minister stated.

“The protocols that we have for testing, we believe that they are serving us well…Is it 100 per cent perfect? Nope. But I’ll tell you what, we are going to give it 100 per cent to make sure that we capture all persons coming into the country.

“We know exactly what we have to do in order to protect the country. We’ve been working closely with tourism to see what the figures are likely to be based on the fact that we have COVID-19 and also looking at pre-COVID figures so that once tourism especially in the winter season picks back up then we would be in a position to have whatever we require here to be able to counter anything that comes our way,” Bostic added.

He maintained that Barbados was in a good position to handle a second wave of COVID-19.

Bostic said the country had in excess of 60 000 tests and was expecting another large supply of tests and equipment.

 

CORRECTION: The story has been corrected to reflect that only visitors coming from the US and other countries deemed high-risk would be quarantined for up to seven days on arrival to Barbados, retested for COVID-19 and monitored daily before being allowed to move freely.