Monitoring unit reports drop in social gatherings and limes as COVID cases climb

The soaring COVID-19 numbers appear to be driving a greater compliance among Barbadians since restrictions were tightened in recent days, the island’s COVID monitors have said.

In making the declaration on Thursday, Director of the COVID-19 Monitoring Unit Ronald Chapman said this can be attributed to the skyrocketing cases of the disease across Barbados in recent times.

“I think my officers are beginning to see, probably because of the increase in cases now, we are starting to see a little bit more respect being shown to the disease by the public,” Chapman told Barbados TODAY.

“But as you know, that tends to rise and fall with the cases. But right now, I think that people are starting to get to the realization that this is no joke; it is serious and that you can lose your life or maybe become seriously ill,” he added.

Barbados has recorded cases in the triple digits on multiple occasions as the highly infectious Delta variant continues to spread on the island. Four deaths were recorded over the last three days.

On Tuesday, 124new cases were recorded including 21 residents under the age of 18.

As of Wednesday, 71 new cases from 2,132 tests were confirmed as the number of people in isolation jumped to 828.

Chapman also revealed that the worrying number of social gatherings and shop limes around the country has declined.

“We are still seeing a couple of things, but we are pretty much trying to restrict movement and that’s what the curfew is there for, to help to slow down movement and once we get movement slowed down, then you tend to have a reduction in transmission, and that’s what that is all about,” Chapman pointed out.

“We are still early in the game. We are still working at it,” he added.

However, when asked to assess the level of compliance specifically with respect to the recent extension of the curfew hours, Chapman directed that to the Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF) which had responsibility for this area.

“The COVID-19 Monitoring Unit doesn’t deal with curfews. Curfew is the police. We don’t have the power…although if we see someone we can call the police or we can give evidence, but curfew is more in the lines of the police,” the monitoring unit head explained.

When Barbados TODAY reached out to Deputy Commissioner of Police Oral Williams he said the data regarding compliance with the curfew was not available at this stage.

The current curfew which went into effect on Saturday, September 11 will last for two weeks initially. It runs from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Monday to Saturday and 6 p.m. to 5 a.m. on Sundays.

When Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced the new restrictions on September 9, she also said that in-house dining at fast food restaurants would cease and team and contact sports and hiking would be prohibited for the two-week period. (emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb)