#BTEditorial – Remaining consistent is key

The COVID-19 pandemic’s legacy of distrust, confusion, conspiracies, death, illness, and  disinformation continues, even as we have accepted that the viral illness will be among us for years to come.

And as much as we try to convince ourselves that we are logically thinking, well-informed people in Barbados, we continue to be influenced by the information and disinformation emanating from the mass media, and most important – social media.

This not only applies to the man on the street, but in many cases, it includes our political and business leaders, who are also impacted by the influential content coming at us from various formats.

The battle for the hearts and minds of citizens on issues related to the pandemic emerged again recently as the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) pushed for a review of the legal requirement to wear masks in public places.

The organisation, that represents the major players in our vital tourism industry, insists that we are losing market share to some of our regional neighbours and other destinations such as Mexico who have dropped the requirement.

They have pointed also to the fact that many of our major source markets for visitors have disbanded the mask mandate and so, when visitors come here on vacation, they do not want to be constrained in a manner that is even more restrictive than in their homelands.

For the majority of Barbadians, however, it seems this suggestion is a no-go. And ironically, from recent local news reports, many visitors to this island indicated they “feel safe” as a result of the current COVID-19 health protocols including mask-wearing and hand sanitising.

Chairperson of the BHTA and hotelier Renee Coppin has put forward the argument for her sector.

“We believe the testing requirement of vaccinated persons is one that should be reviewed. We also believe that there is room for the mask mandate and there are tweaks that can be made,” she said.

“Masks have an important role to play in combating this virus. None of us denies that. However, there are contexts within which the mask mandate is difficult to police and, based on the science, may not necessarily be implemented in the way it is being done,” she outlined to the media recently.

She pointed to the fact that regional states including Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Belize, Cayman, Curacao, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Puerto Rico, St Lucia and St Maarten no longer require testing for fully vaccinated visitors.

And in the case of Aruba and the Dominican Republic, even the unvaccinated are welcomed with open arms with no requirement to test for COVID-19, and some of these destinations have gone further and removed the requirement to wear masks.

But even as we all desire to walk around free of the face coverings and be able to hug and socialise as we did before 2019, the fact is that the environment is still unsafe.

Our fresh wave of COVID-19 infections which are resulting in many deaths should be a wake-up call. Certainly, we should never become so callous to believe that because most of the deaths are among the elderly, that we should care less about their well-being.

Unfortunately, the current debacle in the United States over the wearing of masks does not help our current situation, as the matter has denigrated there into a shamefully political spectacle.

Earlier this week, United States District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle ruled that the national public health agency – the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), had exceeded its legal powers in issuing the mandate to wear masks.

This judge is based in Florida, but federal judges can issue rulings that can block nationwide government policies.

We in Barbados are aware of some of the strange COVID-19 actions taken by the state of Florida under the leadership of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.

The judge’s decision is being appealed by the Biden administration. Though we have no influence in the matter, it is a decision worthy of our support. The inconsistent actions do not inspire confidence in such important agencies as the CDC.

If Americans have ceded the power to guide that country, and the world for that matter, on significant health threats to the CDC, then science ought to be guided by the scientists and not by politically minded judicial officers or politicians.

For us in Barbados, economic considerations are weighing heavily but our advice will remain consistent – let the science be led by scientific and health considerations first, and everything else follows.