Dr Lorde tells Government to lockdown the country

by Anesta Henry

A prominent doctor has urged a full-scale lockdown to get the major spike in COVID-19 cases under control.

Dr Adrian Lorde, a Barbados Defence Force (BDF) veteran of 31 years and family physician, said Barbadians need to take responsibility for protecting themselves from the virus which has now become a  headache for Government and health authorities who are currently conducting aggressive contact tracing.

He insisted that the imposed 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew which came into effect Sunday may not be enough.

Dr Lorde, who made his remarks in a video that has been making the rounds on social media, said he is afraid of the negative impact the climbing numbers can have on society and stressed that he was disappointed that Barbadians have not been effectively following the protocols, including wearing their masks in public.

He said: “Curfew is in place and as a matter of fact, today is a public holiday, which means it is a no workday. We need to shut down for two weeks and get this thing fixed, back together.

“I never said that I didn’t want the tourists to come in, or the flights to come in. But now, look at what is happening. We need to look at that seriously because they are here and they got to get back out, but it is causing problems.

“Whether the new variant [of COVID-19] is here or not, is not important to me. The point is that we Barbadians let our guard down.

“We did not protect ourselves and we don’t need the Government to do it, we don’t need the opposition to do it, we don’t need the tourists to do it. If they come to our place, when in Rome you do as the Romans do and we need to get them to do what we do here and set the examples.”

In the almost five-minute-long video, Dr Lorde, who said these are dark days Barbadians are seeing in the COVID-19 pandemic, noted that he has issued 92 videos pleading with citizens to be safe and protect themselves from the virus.

But the doctor said he has been monitoring the recent blame game where Barbadians are blaming Government, tourists, and a Boxing Day bus crawl, for the recent spike in cases, when they should blame themselves.

“This pandemic is not an easy situation we are dealing with,” he said.

“You need to protect yourself, you need to wear your mask, you need to sanitize, you need to keep your physical distance, you need to dispose of your tissues properly, stay away from crowds. I told you in the Christmas message, don’t do no foolishness this Christmas.

“You remember that? We can’t cancel Christmas, but I told you to just postpone, mute, delete if you have to, some activities for Christmas. And still look what we getting now, hundreds of persons being positive. There is so much they can’t even count them, I suspect they could be well over 600, probably 700 cases in Barbados. I don’t know.”

The doctor said that he visited a hotel only Sunday, where he had to ask a guest to put their mask on. He said that while it appears that people are not encouraging others to wear their masks, this should become the practice.

Dr Lorde suggested that people keep their masks on at all times while in public since it has been shown that this precautionary measure has been proven to prevent the spread of the virus.

He said: “Temperature taking is a screening method. You know, Antigua now is saying that they are willing to help us, St Vincent is saying we are high risk, we are high risk.

“Don’t slip, people. You slipped up. I told you that there are easy cracks. The bracelets a good idea, a little too late, I know why they are late, but that isn’t going to solve the problem. We have to protect ourselves and our country. Those seven deaths are seven too many, down Harrison’s Point is probably expanded, probably filled up.

“Testing and treating is no help, (so) let’s prevent the thing. So protect yourself and stop blaming everybody else, you yourselves are the persons to be blamed, I gone.”

(anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb)