#BTEditorial – The brakes are required

The pressure was mounting for the past few weeks on Government to do something substantial and far-reaching about what many Barbadians were describing as a crisis unfolding with our COVID-19 infections and rapid deaths.

One of the most telling for most people was the declaration by the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that Americans should avoid travel here because their citizens are at a very high risk of contracting COVID-19 while on the island.

It was a shock for some, but for most of us, it should have been expected when one considered the high number of daily infections the country was experiencing.

When confirmed daily cases of the disease began hitting the alarming 300 mark, it was evident that we had moved into a new stage of the disease’s impact on the country.

The language being used by members of the medical fraternity was evolving. The panic appeared to be setting in. Our lone infectious disease control specialist Dr Corey Forde asked us to pray for the country and particularly those on the front line battling the disease.

Dr Lynda Williams, President of the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP), has been strident in her calls for much stiffer measures to be imposed on the population after confirmation that the highly infectious Delta variant was present in the population.

BAMP made its recommendations in July, predicting exactly what would occur if there was community spread from the Delta variant.

“We predicted and used some of the models that had been produced, that once the Delta variant was in the community, in our largely unvaccinated population, that it would spread extremely quickly and that measures were needed to restrict movement and gatherings in order to curb the spread of the virus ahead of getting the vaccines out to people,” she articulated to Barbados TODAY in a commentary last month.

But the pressure cooker for Government came over the past week when the influential Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), in a no holds bar statement, insisted that Government act, and that the administration should do so immediately.

That action, they said, should include frontally addressing the issue of vaccinations for frontline tourism workers.

It is a matter that the administration was hoping, some say unrealistically, to effectively handle by a convincing argument that enough people would be persuaded to take one of the three available vaccines against COVID-19.

The BHTA, which manages the vital foreign exchanging-earning sector minced no words.

“The existing situation is intolerable and requires immediate action. It is against this background that the BHTA is calling on the Government of Barbados to immediately institute mandatory vaccination for all employees in the hospitality and tourism industry, which is deemed high risk.

“A continued delay in the implementation of this policy will result in increased cancellations as our accommodation members have informed that their guests are increasingly requiring to interact with staff that are fully vaccinated.”

This was followed by the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI), whose president Anthony Branker called for a strong vaccine policy, even if it proved unpopular.

In a tone that could be viewed as uncharacteristic for this century-old organisation, the Chamber said pointedly that Government had to get back to the negotiation table of the Social Partnership “where labour, Government and the private sector can carve out a sustainable future for all Barbadians, COVID-19 or no COVID-19”.

Branker went on: “As president of the BCCI, I must now ask, how many more? How many more potential visitors to our island will have to cancel their planned trip? How many more cruise line calls need to be cancelled? How many more doctors and nurses must reach their breaking point?”

“How many more of our children must be left behind because of the online learning? How many more businesses must be interrupted or closed? How many more jobs must be lost? How many more Barbadians have to die?”

And so, Prime Minister Mottley has swiftly introduced her unique format of “brakes” on an extremely worrying situation. It was obvious that as a country we were still on the accelerator when it was time to press brakes and pull up the hand brakes also.

How effective the new measures will be, time will tell.