Health authorities are ready to deal with any potential importation of the more infectious and deadly COVID-19 variants from the expected influx of visitors during the coming tourism season.
With Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) Senator Rudy Grant recently forecasting “very good” bookings for the winter, the Government’s chief medical advisor is assuring residents that the border protocol measures are strong enough to deal with potential carriers of the virus, including the variants which are currently wreaking havoc in some source markets.
On Monday, the Business Insider publication in the UK reported a total of 117 deaths from the Delta variant. Fifty were among people who had taken two doses of the vaccine.
The publication however disclosed that no fully vaccinated people under age 50 had died and the overall death rate was 0.13 per cent.
“Based on what we have put in place, I think it is a fairly robust arrangement to make sure that we catch persons [before] coming into Barbados,” Chief Medical Officer Dr Kenneth George told Barbados TODAY on Monday afternoon.
“There are several circulating variants of concern out there, particularly the Delta variant and also the Gamma variant. You may recall that the Delta variant was very prevalent in the United Kingdom and it is becoming increasingly prevalent in the United States. So once we open our borders, Barbados will get ready for the importation of variants,” Dr George stated.
“What I would say, based on public health, we can’t physically stop the importation of variants. What we can do, is ensure that our public health responses are most appropriate,” he added.
He explained that some of the measures require a longer quarantine period for visitors arriving from the sub-continent.
That period, the CMO pointed out, is seven complete days, followed by a retesting.
“Persons who are coming from the United Kingdom must remain in quarantine for five days and be tested on day six. This is for unvaccinated individuals. If you are vaccinated, the public health evidence shows that the likelihood of one getting severe disease is remote and the likelihood of you transmitting the disease is low,” he explained.
The CMO said if a visitor is fully vaccinated and can prove it, they will be tested…and based on the results, would be released from quarantine.
“Still, all persons coming to Barbados require a PCR test at least three days prior to arrival. If they are vaccinated and their information is accepted by the public health officials at the airport, they are either tested at the airport or tested at their hotel…They remain in quarantine for 24 hours and released once their test results are negative. So it is still a two-step testing process,” Dr George stated.
However, he stressed that visitors would be treated according to their vaccine status.
“If you are not vaccinated, quarantine is from five to seven days depending on where you are travelling from,” he added.
But the Chief Medical Officer contended that at the moment, the challenge with regards to COVID is coming from within the country.
“The challenge with COVID is that if you look at our statistics recently, over the last two to three months, the level of persons travelling to Barbados with COVID remains small. The cases that are coming up are Barbadians or people who are resident who are presenting with symptoms,” said Dr George.
He told Barbados TODAY that while it is important to protect the country’s borders, the message still needs to go out to the local population that they need to do the right thing.
“You might get tired of hearing this. Fortunately, we had one case on Saturday and two out of the 616 cases we did yesterday…two who were positive and again those were linked to the original clusters which we spoke about,” the CMO said.
His strong message to Barbadians is that while it is important to do everything necessary to protect the island’s air and sea ports, it has to be done using a two-pronged approach.
He cautioned that one aspect of that approach is to let Barbadians know they have a responsibility to protect themselves and their family.
President of the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP) Dr Lynda Williams while acknowledging the protocols which have been implemented, said she looks forward to constant reporting on the variants and any changes that may occur in the variants in the Barbados population.
Dr William said she could not say if those protocols would stop a flow of variants from entering the country.
“I don’t know. I could only go with what we have and we have to follow, whether it’s a variant or not, we have to follow the same public health principles which are the social distancing, mask wearing, hand sanitizing, cough etiquette. We also have to use the screening methods which have been set up for unvaccinated and fully vaccinated persons…and we would have been part of developing those protocols,” the BAMP leader told Barbados TODAY.
“I could only say we now have to go forward with them and see,” the medical practitioner stated. (emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)
