BAMP to sit with Gov’t on possible protocol revisions

The Mia Mottley administration has agreed to give a listening ear to a list of urgent recommendations from the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP) that include the mandatory vaccination of all frontline healthcare workers and stricter travel protocols.

During Tuesday evening’s press conference at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, the PM revealed that Cabinet’s COVID-19 subcommittee would review the recommendations to “determine what we can accept and what we can’t”.

The three-page document addressed to the Prime Minister and the subcommittee, BAMP recommended that all travellers receive a mandatory test on the eighth day. It also suggests that countries with either low testing rates and/or steep increases of the Delta, Gamma or Lambda variant should attract more stringent protocols in a division of countries of interest and countries of concern.

According to PM Mottley, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Senator Dr Jerome Walcott, who is also Chairman of the subcommittee, had just returned from meetings in Mexico and would be available to meet with BAMP early next week.

“But in any event, I think you know that Minister Bostic has always been managing this on a day-to-day basis so that if things come up that require action I’ve given the country the analysis ‘gas and brakes’, ‘gas and brakes’ and we will continue with that approach,” she said. (KS)