Barbadians must exercise personal responsibility for virus, says PM

The sharp escalation in COVID-19 cases has come as no surprise to Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who says her recently elected administration’s response would be commensurate with the risk posed by the Omicron variant.

On Wednesday, the country recorded 723 new cases of the virus after logging more than 900 the day before. More than 8,000 people are infected.

But with the vast majority in home isolation, PM Mottley declared that the “shadow of death” which was present during last year’s outbreak of the delta variant had somewhat subsided.

“We expect the numbers to continue to rise, just as we expect them to rise globally,” said Prime Minister Mia Mottley, during a more than 40-minute address Wednesday at State House.

“From the very beginning, we have said that we can think and we can reason and it was clear to us from the outset that Omicron was not going to be the same level of seriousness as Delta and that there is simply not the shadow of death that Delta and others had portrayed with Omicron and to that extent, we will respond appropriate to risk as we always do.

“We have said all along that we must continue to accept that this is a marathon and not a sprint, and the reality is if we try to treat it otherwise, we will cause more people to be affected by non pandemic reasons than by omicron itself, which is proven to be significantly less serious than the other variants that we have had to manage during the course of the last two years,” she added.

The Prime Minister stressed that high-level officials from the Pan American Health Organisation had advised that more than half of the world’s population would have been expected to contract the Omicron variant.

As a result, she said the onus was on Barbadians to exercise personal responsibility for their own actions.

Still, Mottley revealed that the first meeting after the swearing ceremony would be with newly-appointed Minister of Health and Wellness Ian Gooding-Edghill.

She said her government would have to “think outside the box”, cognizant that the pandemic could not be fought as a “single source issue”.

“We also fight it as a global community that has seen a significant disruption in the supply chain and therefore our capacity to access things as basic as tests, right through to other aspects continue to be issues with which we must continuously engage as we go forward,” said Mottley.

Over the current five-year term, Mottley stressed that the climate crisis would be high on her agenda in response to threats like Hurricane Elsa and last year’s ‘freak’ storm which displaced nearly 2500 families.

She noted that most of the affected people are below the poverty line, underscoring the relevance of the roofs to reefs project.

Other areas of concern highlighted by the PM include the country’s chronic non communicable disease crisis, the declining workforce, and the loss of social capital because of crime.

She added that former education minister Santia Bradshaw had laid the groundwork for promised education reforms which would allow newly-appointed Minister, Kay McConney to hit the ground running. kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb