New COVID menace nears our shores, prompting docs to back travel rules

Visitors to Barbados who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus will still have to quarantine fully here if they pass through certain countries where COVID-19 variants are prevalent, a move that has gained the backing of the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP).

BAMP president Dr Lynda Williams said Barbados can ill afford to have any of the highly contagious variants here.

On Monday, Trinidadian health authorities confirmed that the highly transmissible Brazilian strain of COVID-19 has been detected there.

The development comes a week after Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced that from May 8, new protocols would be in place for vaccinated visitors arriving here, including a shorter quarantine period.

In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Dr Williams said there was a possibility that if the Brazilian variant reached Trinidad it could reach Barbados’ shores, despite limited travel from Port of Spain.

Dr Williams said: “From May 8 when the new travel protocols come into effect if somebody passes through a country with variants of concern then they will be made to quarantine.

“Even if they are fully vaccinated they will be made to quarantine for the full time if they have passed through a country which has variants of concern, so that is the measure that we have instituted in the new travel protocols to deal with people who are coming from areas where variants of concern are prevalent, whether they are vaccinated or unvaccinated.”

A list of these ‘high-risk’ countries would be provided by the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc (BTMI) and would be frequently updated.

Dr Williams reiterated her call for variant testing to be done here as other countries in the region, including Trinidad, are doing their own testing.

She said even though samples are being sent to the Port of Spain-based Caribbean Public Health Agency, it was unclear if they are being sent regularly.

Despite confirming the presence of the more virulent UK strain – known as B-117 – amid an explosion of infections since the start of the year, the Ministry of Health has yet to formally declare which of the cases, including deaths, are linked to the variant.

Dr Williams told Barbados TODAY: “I have made my concerns widely known about variants and the need for variant testing in Barbados, how important it is and how important it is for our tourism product.

“What I would say is that they are doing it in Trinidad and there are many others who have offered to give us assistance in this regard but I don’t know how far along the whole matter has progressed in terms of where we are at getting that done on a regular routine basis in Barbados.

“There is the Indian variant and we don’t really know much about that but it is in the UK and if it is in the UK it can potentially be here.

“We don’t know how much protection the vaccines give, we don’t know, there are so many unknowns, plus some tourism markets are saying that unless we are doing variant testing that they wouldn’t really want their people to come to us and that’s because obviously, a variant can develop anywhere.

“We can develop a Barbadian variant and it beholds us to know what is happening here on the ground as well.

“The fact of the matter is that we have to use all of the resources we have as a country to get this done and most likely we will have to do it in collaboration because the setup to get this kind of testing done in Barbados is very difficult.”
(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)