Lorde weighs in on lockdown, health checks

A prominent medical practitioner on Wednesday urged Barbadians not to let the presence of the contagious UK variant of COVID-19 here drive fear into them.

But following Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s announcement on Tuesday evening that a house-to-house health check is among the latest measures to be implemented as Government moves to “wage war” on a spiralling COVID-19 crisis, family and sports medicine physician Dr Adrian Lorde has warned people to be careful opening their doors to strangers, especially those wearing suits and masks that may mask their identity.

“There are some people who might try to test you in some other way than what the Prime Minister meant,” Dr Lorde said in the latest of weekly video posts.

While Barbados has 343 active COVID cases, with Minister of Health Lt Col Jeffrey Bostic declaring community spread on Saturday, followed by the announcement of a two-week lockdown from next Wednesday in an effort to contain the spread of the virus, Dr Lorde expressed concern about the current state of the fluid situation.

Dr Lorde said: “The story is not good, not what I am hearing.

“We are going to start the antigen testing, rapid testing, we doing PCR testing, but you have to protect yourselves. I see 340… still active cases. The variant is here, as it has been for a little while, but that being here is not supposed to drive more fear in us, just let us pull ourselves together.”

During her address to the nation on Tuesday, Prime Minister Mottley also urged senior citizens to stay at home for the next three weeks unless they have pressing matters to attend to. But Dr Lorde said while it is okay to appeal to the elderly folks to stay home, the reality stands that they have always been there.

Three elderly people, including a 91-year-old woman, died of COVID-19 over the weekend.

Dr Lorde declared: “They didn’t go anywhere. It is we that brought it home to them. So yesterday evening when I went by my mother and I kept my six feet she said ‘son come here’ and I said no mom I just come to say hi. She said, ‘why you have on your mask?

“And I said alright. So don’t bring it home to those people that are already home. They are not going anywhere. You go where you have to go when you have to go. And if you are not feeling well, call the helpline at the hospital, call your family physician, call the polyclinic and explain your symptoms. If you need to be tested, be tested.”

And while mask-wearing in public will be mandatory from Wednesday, Dr Lorde said Barbadians should not wait until then but start practising it from now. He also encouraged people to desist from congregating and to refrain from rushing to the supermarkets, since they have been given a week to prepare for the two-week lockdown.
(AH)