DePeiza to Govt: go Back to drawing board on COVID combat tactics

Democratic Labour Party leader Verla DePeiza has urged the Government to go back to the drawing board on its tactics to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

DePeiza told the party’s St. Lucy branch meeting on Sunday that although a major lockdown would be a devastating blow to business, a different approach to help lessen the levels of congestion seen within public spaces can be found.

She said: “It does not have to come in that harsh sense of a lockdown in the way that we experienced it before, but imagine the benefits to both business and persons if [for example] the supermarkets were allowed to open 24/7. Part of the problem is congestion by cutting hours and then with the management of numbers going in, because you can now pick your moment to shop, we could be curbing movement with a simple thing like that.

“It calls for something more than the usual thinking, do deal with something more than the usual crisis. We need to be bringing our minds to bear, but when I say that, it must always be within the parameters drawn for us by the political class, by the medical and scientific class.”

The DLP president also chided the Mottley administration for what she described as contradictory stances on the surge of infections. She accused the Government of ignoring sound medical advice given by medical professionals over the last two months.

“The mistake that Barbados has made under this administration, has been to politicize COVID to the point where the doctors and the scientists are shouted down on a regular,” said DePeiza. “It was back in August, when the UWI scientist told us about 500 cases per day [was possible], the government must have scoffed because that did not move them to action.

“Now that we are upwards of 300 a day all of a sudden it does not seem like a fairy tale, but before it gets to the projection of the 500 [now] is the time for action.”

DePeiza called for wider open discussion between the medical fraternity and Barbadians who were still unvaccinated in an effort to reduce levels of tension being seen between unvaccinated and vaccinated Barbadians. She suggested that some citizens are feeling pressured to do something they were still unsure about in the face of changing policies which are being perceived as rewarding locals who have taken vaccines.

“If you keep bringing in policies that create an us and them, you are pitting them against each other, you are not putting them to help work with each other for the betterment of this country,” the opposition politician declared. 
(SB)