by Kareem Smith
The United States’ Centre for Disease Control (CDC) has been slammed for its “mind-boggling” designation of Barbados as a high-risk destination for Coronavirus (COVID-19) transmission and its warning to United States citizens to stay away.
In fact, Barbados’ Ambassador to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) David Comissiong has rejected the designation as a contradiction of the CDC’s own criteria for determining the risk of COVID-19 transmission.
On Thursday, this newspaper reported that Barbados was excluded from the CDC’s list of countries deemed safe for US citizens to travel along with Antigua & Barbuda, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Saint Martin, Sint Maarten, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks & Caicos Islands and the US Virgin Islands.
Further Barbados TODAY investigations revealed that destinations with a population of less than 300,000 are deemed level three (high-risk) by the CDC where more than ten new cases have been recorded. The CDC’s website does not specify what it determines as “new” cases or account for the percentage of imported cases that have been detected upon arrival at the country’s ports of entry.
The website does however note that it considers “secondary criteria” including “health capacities” such as available hospital beds and ventilators, public health infrastructures such as testing and contact tracing capacity, and documented exported cases”.
Sixteen people are currently in isolation in Barbados after testing positive for the dreaded virus, most of whom received positive tests upon arrival or after receiving follow-up tests while in quarantine.
The developments are occurring as Barbados struggles to guide its economy through the pandemic, banking on tourism-based initiatives like the 12-month Barbados Welcome Stamp Initiative.
Efforts to reach high-level Ministry of Health officials and/or Foreign Minister Jerome Walcott for comment on the developments were unsuccessful. However, Ambassador Commissiong noted that it was the CDC’s designations that were used when regional governments created the CARICOM bubble. According to the outspoken diplomat, the development is an indictment on the tremendous work carried out by local public health officials.
“On one level it is laughable, but of course, the consequences are so serious that you really can’t laugh. That is so very regrettable and unmerited, and in my opinion, it does Barbados a severe injustice, and hopefully, the relevant authorities in Barbados would be able to engage with the US authorities and correct what is obviously a mistake that was made,” Commissiong told Barbados TODAY.
Adding that he was at a loss about the factors that would have been considered when the CDC came to its determination, he acknowledged that it ought to be taken up at a ministerial level.
“CARICOM has established a travel bubble which includes all of the countries that are considered low-risk or very low-risk countries, where travellers from those countries don’t require COVID-19 tests and one of the countries is Barbados. Barbados qualifies as a low-risk country, both in terms of the U.S Centre for Disease Control’s formula and the European Center for Disease Control’s formula. So it is mind-boggling how, using the US CDC formula we qualify as a low-risk country and yet they would determine that Barbados is high-risk,” he added.
The ambassador however sought to quell any notion that the move was an act of diplomatic aggression, noting that as recently as July, Prime Minister Mia Mottley was commended by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin for her economic policies.
At the time, they also expressed a willingness to cooperate with CARICOM countries including Barbados, from a public health and economic standpoint.
“I will choose to remain optimistic and to say that this has to be a very unfortunate error that will soon be corrected once it is drawn to the attention of authorities at the CDC, because if you avail yourself of the CDC’s test for determining whether a country is low, medium or high risk in relation to COVID-19, Barbados easily qualifies under the CDC’s own criteria as a low-risk country. And it is the CDC criteria that CARICOM has used to develop our own concept of a CARICOM travel bubble and to include Barbados in that CARICOM bubble,” said Commissiong.
“Coming from the highest levels of the US government, we had a written indication that they were very sympathetic to the points that Prime Minister Mottley had been making about the need for international financial institutions and major countries like the United States to work with our countries in helping us to get through this COVID-19 inspired crisis,” Comissiong added
(kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)