BAMP weighs on next Monday’s partial reopening

The Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP) would have preferred to see a sustained decrease in the number of positive COVID-19 cases before the country was re-opened.

That is according to president Dr Lynda Williams, who warned that Barbadians would have to be extremely cautious in the coming days and weeks to avoid the possibility of the country re-entering another lockdown phase.

Last night during a televised address, Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced that there would be a phased reopening of the country effective Monday.

Barbados had been under a national pause from February 3.

Mottley acknowledged that even though there had not been a drop in the number of positive cases being reported, she said it was expected that last weekend’s restrictions which mandated persons to stay in their homes, would eventually bear fruit.

While Dr Williams told Barbados TODAY BAMP was not consulted in the decision to re-open the country, she said Government had to be prepared to do whatever was necessary if the situation deteriorated again.

“We weren’t involved in the process or the decision-making for the re-opening. We didn’t know, I didn’t know for sure, which way it was going to go.

“The metrics we were told are going to be explained further by the Ministry of Health but what we would have wanted to see was the flattening of the curve. We would have wanted to see a sustained decrease in the rise of cases and in the positivity ratio,” Dr Williams said.

“If the lockdown matrices have been decided then we would want to wait until those have been shown to us to see what the decision-making factors were.”

She acknowledged though, that the country’s dire economic state had to be taken into consideration.

However, she said re-opening the country presented several risks.

“We appreciate that it’s being done gradually but all we are saying is that we advocate for caution. Be prepared to do whatever it takes again to bring the country into alignment because yes, we cannot stay locked down forever and we appreciate that.

“We appreciate the difficult financial position, but we know that COVID loves a crowd and wherever there is a crowd and wherever that crowd is in close proximity then we have to be prepared to mitigate those factors,” Dr Williams said.

“So it’s not just about looking at the r-rate and the positivity ratio, you also have to look at all of the other things like resources, contact tracing, lab capacity, our ability to scale up if we should have another surge, because if you re-open and then you start to see things go the other way, you have to be able to know that on top of what you’re dealing with now that you can deal with more if it should arise.”
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)