For many of us who were wishing for the year 2020 to reach its end, and were brimming with optimism that 2021 would bring some respite from the brutal effects of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), may now be reassessing those hopeful thoughts.
As 2021 approached, several vaccine options were expected to be launched and widely available by March. Barbados was confident in its handling of the pandemic, we were branded among the “safest places in the world” to be, as rising infections wreaked havoc in countries across the globe. Reality stars, politicians and other high-flyers from the United Kingdom and North American were making their way to Barbados.
There is no need now to recite the 180 degree turn of events for us in Barbados. The pain is being seen and felt in every corner of our society.
We, therefore, are not surprised by the depressing review of the Barbados economy’s performance in 2020, which was delivered by Governor of the Central Bank, Cleviston Haynes, earlier this week. Economic activity, he revealed, contracted by almost 18 per cent. Tourism revenue fell by over $1 billion, as arrivals of long-stay tourists plummeted by almost 90 per cent.
These are statistics that will surely keep our economic planners awake at night. Save for the performance of the international business sector, which provided critical corporate tax revenue in foreign dollars, the news from 2020 was generally depressing.
But as bad as 2020 appeared to be, 2021 looks like a new beast.
Regarding the outlook for the rest of the year, Haynes was not prepared to make a firm prediction. Such is the fluidity of the situation with which we are grappling.
“[Recovery in 2021] has been muted by the heightened uncertainty caused by the ongoing, raging effects of the virus in key tourism source markets, new country lock-downs and travel restrictions,” the Governor has told us.
With COVID-19 infections so widespread and the virus mutating into dangerous, more highly infectious and deadlier strains, the morass of this disease has become even deeper. There are now three confirmed, more infectious variants of COVID-19 that have been detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa and the latest in Brazil. At least one of these variant has now spread to several other countries including here at home.
What is likely to panic our economic and public health planners in Barbados, is the capacity of the variants to spread quickly, infect large numbers of persons, and possibly pressure our fragile, limited resourced health care system to the point of collapse.
It did not go unnoticed, the plea this week from our Infection Control Specialist, Dr Corey Forde for Barbadians to pray for the teams working at the various isolation facilities, and their COVID-infected patients. Of note too, was his concern that he was attending to younger patients in the Critical Care Facility at Harrison Point, St Lucy, than was previously the case.
To add to our list of growing challenges in 2021, was the decision Friday by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and major airlines in Canada, to suspend all flights to the Caribbean and Mexico for the next three months.
In addition to requiring a negative COVID test result before boarding a plane to come home, Canadians and travellers to that country will have to take a PCR test at specified Canadian airports, and quarantine for 14 days in a hotel at the travellers’ expense.
Despite Canada’s long history of friendship and commitment to the region, as any leader should, the Canadian Prime Minister has put his citizens’ welfare first. Trudeau’s dramatic actions are aimed at limiting the spread of COVID-19 and especially the deadlier variants.
Although Canada is not our major tourism source market, it is nevertheless a market from which a substantial number of our guests arrive. Therefore, when viewed together with the situation in the United Kingdom and the USA, the Canadian decision is a further devastating blow to our economic prospects for 2021.
What countries like ours should have learned from this pandemic is that friends can swiftly become less than friendly when medicines and supplies are limited. We have seen the Wild West approach when poorer nations sought to acquire personal protective equipment, ventilators, and now COVID vaccines. This clearly put in perspective the powerless position of small dependent countries like us. It further highlights the necessity for such countries to band together, so that hopefully, they will be more effective in future events.
But even in the face of all that confronts us, there are still areas of activity that we in Barbados can pin our hopes on for survival during what is expected to be another tumultuous year. The buoyancy of the international business sector, the desire of large and small businesses to pivot in the face of crises, the relatively high level of foreign reserves, and the support of international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund, will all be required to prop up this COVID-battered economy and society.
