The Overseas Situation Report Tuesday 28 September 2021
by Mike Evans
“I think protecting your family and giving to them is so important. It’s the most important achievement.”
– Natalia Vodianova
As we reach the end of another month with the pandemic this report is looking at the Caribbean. In the past week this area has seen big increases in new cases while across the world there has been a reduction in new cases..
For many the chance to visit the Caribbean is the holiday of a lifetime. At the moment though many people will be watching closely the rise in infections across this area. In the past week, according to the Worldometer.info charts 10 countries in the Caribbean occupy places in the top 50 countries where the infections in the last seven days have increased. This comes at a time where across the world the rate of infection compared to the previous week is down by 12% and the Caribbean is seeing a marked increase in cases.
To look in detail, we must of course recognise that these are countries with small populations and as such, any increases tend to look alarming as the percentages will be based on smaller numbers. However, this past week St Vincent & the Grenadines saw an 84% increase in new cases compared to the previous seven days and currently have a seven day rate per 100,000 of population of 466. Anguilla, Dominica and Barbados follow with increases in cases of 74%,69% and 59% respectively for the past week and 7 day rates of 217, 608 and 329.4 respectively.
In the week where the UN 76th General Assembly took place the Prime Minister of St Vincent called for everyone to put aside their differences and work in solidarity to tackle the pandemic. “Globally, we have witnessed unacceptable vaccine nationalism; the politicization of the roll-out of the vaccines; and the roll-out of vaccines for the rich first and the poor afterwards” he lamented.
He spoke of vaccine hesitancy amongst his country’s population, underscoring the need to stop “anti-vax misinformation and disinformation” and warned that the pervasive inequalities that defined the pre-COVID political and socioeconomic order “must not become tomorrow’s nightmarish reality”.
Mr. Gonsalves also acknowledged “notable, and noble, work by some global institutions, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank, and COVAX Facility, to make vaccines more accessible to poor or marginalized countries”. He went on to say, It is true, too, though relatively late in day, that some rich countries in the North Atlantic (USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom) have delivered or agreed to deliver, freely, from their surpluses, vaccines to some less developed countries; we are very grateful. Still, though, some of these countries may be so slow in their promised deliveries that they may end up, embarrassingly, with expired doses of the vaccines running into several millions. It is timely to remind all of us that the noblest form of solidarity is to give not from the abundance or surplus that we may have but from the little that we possess; that is the lesson of the proverbial widow’s mite.
He also took a swipe at those in control; of the world’s media, not only have the ways of the old order, pre-COVID, tended, still, to guide powerful countries in their actions; so, too, the behemoths in global communications. These entities, enveloped in mega profits and profiteering, own and control the various internet platforms, with little or no public regulation, and have ignored or abandoned any real sense of responsibility for the anti-vax misinformation and disinformation which occupy cyberspace. As a consequence, real people die in multitudes across the world.
Meanwhile in Barbados where the rate of infection is increasing the Prime Minister, Mia Mottley disclosed that a number of Ghanain and Cuban nurses will soon arrive in Barbados to help with the epidemic. After a few weeks of Barbadians being mandated by law to be inside their homes by 6 pm on Sundays, as one of the strategies to control the rising cases amidst the Delta variant, Mottley said statistics are showing that the virus is not spreading in public spaces, but regrettably in the homes and neighbourhoods.
Speaking at a news conference in New York, Mottley called on Barbadians to play their role in keeping their households and communities safe.
“The Directive finishes tonight and in fact there will be a new directive as of tonight as well as a new proclamation from Her Excellency [Dame Sandra Mason], which will be issued and that has to be dealt with in 30 days in Parliament. So that is really the only major change for now.
“I pray that if we can hit the 20 000 target [of persons getting the COVID-19 vaccine] in the next two weeks, that the [9 pm] curfew would be extended until midnight. And we have said this all along. It is not a case of holding people to ransom, it is a case of reality of public health management and the capacity to be able to reduce the numbers as we go through our day,” she said.
Putting Barbados’ COVID-19 fight into context, Prime Minister Mottley said the country has had only 7, 200 positive COVID-19 cases in the past 20 months, which means that 270, 000 have not had it. But, Mottley said while the statistics are relatively low when compared to other countries, the situation is serious, considering that no one knows if they will contract the virus.
She said that while 49 per cent of Barbadians have had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, she is bothered that children under 12-years-old are the ones getting the virus. Prime Minister Mottley said that reality stands that children in this age group have to be contracting the virus right in their homes.
Meanwhile across the Caribbean sea in Bermuda this small island country has seen a big rise in covid 19 infections in the past couple of weeks. Its current 7 day rate of infection per 100,000 is 1232.4. With a population of just under 62,000 people the total number of new cases in the past week was 764 an increase of 1% on the previous week. There are 1,612 active coronavirus cases, with 65 people in hospital, 14 of them in intensive care.
Kim Wilson, the health minister, said: “This is very sad news and I extend heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the deceased during this difficult time.” She added: “This outbreak is serious and I am sad to see where we are today. This is heartbreaking. “More people are getting quite sick, more people are being hospitalised and more are dying.”
Doctors yesterday joined forces in an impassioned plea to the public to get vaccinated. The Bermuda Medical Doctors’ Association said their “hearts were breaking” at the human cost of the pandemic. There has been some hesitancy in getting vaccinated with around 67% of the population having been fully vaccinated. The rise in cases has come about since the end of July 2021. Until them during the months of June and July there were very few daily cases and the total new cases was in single figures. On 26th July the daily figure went from 6 to 36 and has been increasing daily ever since to this week where they have over 1600 active cases.
Unvaccinated travellers can quarantine at home for 14 days, starting from Sunday, the health minister said yesterday.
Kim Wilson told MPs that people who arrive on the island without immunisation will wear electronic monitoring devices and red wristbands. They will be expected to test for the coronavirus only on arrival in Bermuda and on Day 14.
Ms Wilson said that the two-week quarantine in a Government approved facility was introduced on June 20 with an end date of September 30. The policy later changed so that unimmunised travellers could “test out” and complete part of their quarantine at any accommodation. Ms Wilson explained that in the latest outbreak of Covid-19 “local transmission of the disease far outweighs the incidence of the disease among travellers”.
As so many of these small island nations rely so much on tourism we can but hope that they are able to get the rate of infections under control and start to lead a more normal life.
Until the next time Stay Safe.
Total Cases Worldwide – 232,728,390
Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,764,298
Total Recovered Worldwide – 209,369,824
Total Active Cases Worldwide – 18,594,268 (8.0 % of the total cases)
Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 214,134,122