The Overseas Situation Report Friday 8 October 2021

by Mike Evans

 “When it comes to social media, there are just times I turn off the world, you know. There are just sometimes you have to give yourself space to be quiet, which means you’ve got to set those phones down.”  

– Michelle Obama

In this report we are looking at the impact that covid 19 has had and continues to have on the population around the world. There are differing reasons behind many of the issues that the pandemic has brought to different countries but overall the vast majority of countries have seen one thing in common. Worldwide, statistics suggest mental health has declined since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Is social media partly to blame?

On a global scale, social media can be a way for people to gather information, share ideas, and reach out to others facing similar challenges. It can also be an effective platform to relay information quickly during a national or worldwide crisis.

This global reach is what has made social media a critical communication platform during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As government health organizations used it to relay recent findings on prevention and treatment, social media became more than a place to post the latest vacation photos — it became a hub of pandemic-related information.

But has the use of social media during the pandemic negatively impacted mental health and well-being? Or has it had the opposite effect?

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health conditions are on the rise. Data show that around 20% of children and adolescents worldwide live with a mental health condition. Moreover, suicide is the second leading cause of death in 15–29-year-olds.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, a report published by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that of the adults surveyed in the United States: 31% reported symptoms of anxiety or depression, 13% reported having started or increased substance use, 26% reported experiencing stress-related symptoms, 11% reported having suicidal thoughts suggests that pandemic-related mental health challenges have impacted people differently, with some racial and ethnic groups disproportionately affected by pandemic stress. In particular, Hispanic adults reported experiencing the highest level of psychosocial stress in relation to food shortages and insecure housing at the start of the pandemic.

A research report published in Frontiers in Psychology suggests that there is an association between pandemic threats and extensive anxiety and concern among the public.

Scientists explain that some anxiety about personal safety and health during a widespread disease outbreak can help promote healthy behaviour, including hand-washing and social distancing. However, in some people, anxiety can become overwhelming and cause harm.

Social media use has been on the rise since its debut in 1995. As it has grown, more people have started using it as a news source. According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted between August 31 and September 7, 2020, about 53% of adults in the U.S. get their news from social media.This report indicates that social media can help effectively communicate health information to a global audience during a public health crisis. However, the information shared on these platforms can sometimes be inaccurate or misleading.

For example, one research review published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research looked at social media posts before March 2019 and found that Twitter contained the most health misinformation — mostly about smoking products and drugs.

According to one study, attempts to reduce the spread of misinformation by fact-checking and flagging posts with inaccuracies may help reduce the influence of false information for some people.

Still, there is ongoing debate on whether social media content regulation may increase mistrust and promote more social media posts reflecting inaccurate information.

Because the COVID-19 pandemic emerged recently, scientists are only beginning to understand the role of social media on users’ mental health.

For instance, using questionnaires, researchers in China interviewed college students from March 24 to April 1, 2020, to determine whether social media harmed mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results indicate a link between higher use of social media and an increased risk of depression. Furthermore, the authors suggest that exposure to negative reports and posts may contribute to the risk of depression in some people. Additionally, according to a study that appears in the journal Globalization and Health, there is increasing evidence that endless news feeds reporting SARS-CoV-2 infection rates and COVID-19 death rates could influence the mental health of some individuals.

According to one Lifestyle coach, Lee Chambers who is a British Psychologist the pandemic has had a big effect on people’s mental well being. In a recent interview he said, “While we are all impacted in differing ways by social media consumption, the continual flow of negative and misinformation during the past 18 months have spread fear; the highlighting of social and political issues has reduced optimism; and edited photos and toxically positive content leave no space to feel secure or express negative emotions healthily. Alongside the increased desire for metrics such as likes and comments in these challenging times, it’s likely that social media has exacerbated mental health challenges.”

He also explained that social media keeps people connected to friends and family, especially during social distancing with limited physical interactions. Yet, this increased use may have amplified social anxiety and challenges with perfectionism and comparison for some people.

Research published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research  suggests that psychosocial expressions have significantly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This means that more people are expressing their emotions, both positive and negative, and garnering support from others. As a result, the stigma surrounding mental health conditions may be decreasing.

According to Prof. Steven C. Hayes, Foundation Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno, who developed the Relational Frame Theory and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, told Medical News Today, “We know that there are toxic processes that produce particular challenges for people: exposure to physical and psychological pain; a comparison with others and judgment; entanglement with self-judgment.”Prof. Hayes noted that the COVID-19 pandemic exploded the idea that mental health conditions only affect certain individuals.

With emerging research suggesting social media may impact the mental health of some users, some platforms have begun to initiate positive changes. For example, on September 14, 2021, the social media platform TikTok announced new features for its users to help provide resources for suicide prevention.

But can they do more?

According to Chambers: “Social media platforms have a key role to play in how their products impact the mental health and well-being of their users. There are many aspects where this can be achieved. However, the challenge is that using most of these will decrease addictiveness, engagement, and time spent. This often goes against the aims of the platform itself.”

He suggests that social media platforms could consider improvements to build in mental well-being protection, including:

• limiting news feed length
• changing the way notifications are triggered
• labeling altered images
• introducing stronger regulation and monitoring of content designed to harm
• implementing suggestions that users take a break
• signposting to evidence-based resources and support on posts that may be triggering
• ensuring clearer guidelines and more ability for users to easily control sensitive content.

According to Chambers, “when it comes to using social media, both moderation of time and content consumed and intentionality play a significant part in garnering the benefits and reducing the downsides.” He suggests that having a “digital sunset” before retiring for the night can help ensure anxiety will not impact sleep. In addition, having a social media-free day can positively affect mental well-being.

The irony of all this is that we are all using social media to get our messages across and at Safe Communities we are well aware of the impact that social media has had on people during the pandemic and as we start to see the way out we all hope that the social media platforms will get back to what they were invented for in the first place.

With that until the next time, Stay Safe.

Total Cases Worldwide – 237,221,331

Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,843,447

Total Recovered Worldwide – 214,364,486

Total Active Cases Worldwide – 18,013,398  (7.6 % of the total cases) 

Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 219,207,933

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Other Resources:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles

 

The Overseas Situation Report Tuesday 5 October 2021

by Mike Evans

“Nowadays, we are confronted by a huge gap between rich and poor. This is not only morally wrong, but practically a mistake. It leads to the rich living in anxiety and the poor living in frustration, which has the potential to lead to more violence. We have to work to reduce this gap. “

– Dalai Lama

The last few days has seen the toll for the Pandemic reach the tragic milestone of 5 million deaths with unvaccinated people particularly exposed to the virulent Delta strain.

The variant has exposed the wide disparities in vaccination rates between rich and poor nations, and the upshot of vaccine hesitancy in some western nations. In this report we are looking at the impact still on a number of countries and what is happening now.

More than half of all global deaths reported on a seven-day average were in the United States, Russia, Brazil, Mexico and India.

While it took just over a year for the COVID-19 death toll to hit 2.5 million, the next 2.5 million deaths were recorded in just under eight months. An average of 8,000 deaths were reported daily across the world over the last week, or around five deaths every minute. However, the global death rate has been slowing in recent weeks.

There has been increasing focus in recent days on getting vaccines to poorer nations, where many people are yet to receive a first dose, even as their richer counterparts have begun giving booster shots.

More than half of the world has yet to receive at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to Our World in Data.

The World Health Organization this week said its COVAX distribution programme would, for the first time, distribute shots only to countries with the lowest levels of coverage.Co-led by the WHO, COVAX has since January largely allocated doses proportionally among its 140-plus beneficiary states according to population size.

“For the October supply we designed a different methodology, only covering participants with low sources of supply,” Mariangela Simao, WHO Assistant Director General for Access to Vaccines, said in a recording of a conference presentation last week posted on the WHO’s website. Countries considered among the least covered are targeted for supplies, although there was no mention of the countries that would receive the vaccines. COVAX has so far overseen these allotments. The presentation went on to detail the fact that of the more than 90 poorer nations served by COVAX, about half had immunised less than 20% of their populations and 26 less than 10%. Many wealthy nations reached 70% coverage during the northern hemisphere summer.

About 75 million doses of Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Sinopharm vaccines will be distributed in October to 49 of over 500 million shots, of which about 300 million have been shipped to recipient countries.

Meanwhile, the United States, which has been battling vaccine misinformation that has caused about one-third of the population to avoid inoculations, surpassed 700,000 deaths on Friday, the highest toll of any country. The country has reported an average of more than 2,000 deaths per day over the past week, which represents about 60% of the peak in fatalities in January. The United States still leads the world in COVID-19 cases and deaths, accounting for 19% and 14% of all reported infections and fatalities.

The highly transmissible Delta variant has driven a surge in COVID-19 cases that peaked around mid-September before falling to the current level of about 117,625 cases per day, based on a seven-day rolling average.

That is still well above the 10,000 cases a day that top U.S. infectious diseases. Expert Dr. Anthony Fauci has said all needs to be reached to end the health crisis.

U.S. cases and hospitalizations have been trending lower, but health officials are bracing for a possible resurgence as cooler weather forces more activities indoors.While national hospitalization numbers have fallen in recent weeks, some states, particularly in the south of the country, are bucking that trend to record big rises, putting pressure on healthcare systems.

Last week saw the U.S. President, Joe Biden, receive a booster shot, hoping to provide an example for Americans on the need to get the extra shot even as millions go without their first.

While scientists are divided over the need for booster shots when so many people in the United States and other countries remain unvaccinated, Biden announced the push in August as part of an effort to shore up protection against the highly transmissible Delta variant.

About 56% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, with around 65% receiving at least one dose, according to the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New York hospitals on Monday began firing or suspending healthcare workers for defying a state order to be vaccinated, while a federal judge ruled in favor of an Ohio private healthcare provider that had mandated shots for its staff.

Vaccination rates in some parts of the Midwest and South are lagging those in the Northeast and parts of the West Coast, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, indicating a divide between the rural and urban parts of the country.

Russia reported 887 coronavirus-related deaths on Friday, the largest single-day death toll it has recorded since the pandemic began and the fourth day in a row it has set that record. Only 33% of Russia’s eligible population has received a first vaccine dose.

According to the Worldometer.info site in the past week there have been 165,623 new reported cases compared to 145,985 in the previous week, a rise of 13%.

As a region, South America has the highest death toll in the world accounting for 21% of all reported deaths and over 1.1 million deaths. Brazil has the highest death toll of the South American countries with 597,986 deaths recorded so far followed by Peru with 199,485.

However on closer analysis Peru with a much smaller population has more than double the number of deaths per 1 million of population than Brazil. However, when we look at the latest weekly comparisons of reported cases Brazil has 116,149 cases in the past week and the whole of South America has recorded only 166,996.

While many of the South American countries have seen a big drop in cases, Brazil is still suffering from the lack of vaccines.

North America and Eastern Europe contribute more than 14% of all fatalities each, according to Reuters analysis. The smaller countries of Eastern Europe have been hard hit by the pandemic. When looking at the number of deaths per 1 million of population, Bosnia and Herzegovina have the highest rate at 3,267 deaths per 1 million of population. They are followed closely by North Macedonia, Hungary, Montenegro and Bulgaria all with over 3000 deaths per  million of population. Whilst Russia and the UK have the highest number of deaths in Europe the number per 1 million is a lot lower at 1,444 and 2004 respectively although it should be notes that Russia’s own health minister reckons that the number of deaths due to Cpovid 19 should be around 3 time more than they have reported.

To finish this report we look at  India, one of the first countries ravaged by the Delta variant, which has gone from an average of 4,000 deaths a day to less than 300 as its vaccination campaign is rolled out. India recorded a spike of 20,799 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours. The country also witnessed 180 deaths, taking the death toll to 448,997. On the vaccine front it was announced that 70% of the adult population had received the first dose of the vaccine and in Delhi they have reopened the schools for the first time since the pandemic took hold in March 2020.

With the Delta variant now the dominant strain around the globe and has been reported in 187 out of 194 World Health Organization member countries it is still a viable threat to the health of the world and there is still a way to go before we can safely say we are through the pandemic.

Until the next time Stay Safe.

Total Cases Worldwide – 235,846,317

Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,818,348

Total Recovered Worldwide – 212,751,246

Total Active Cases Worldwide – 18,276,723  (7.7 % of the total cases)

Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 217,569,594 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Other Resources:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#main_table

https://www.reuters.com/world

The Overseas Situation Report Friday 1 October 2021

by Mike Evans

“No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you’re still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.”

– Tony Robbins

In this report we take a look at the Bloomberg Covid Resilience Ranking system and see what are the best and worst countries to be in with Covid 19.

The Covid Resilience Ranking is a monthly snapshot of where the virus is being handled the most effectively with the least social and economic upheaval. Compiled using 12 data indicators that span virus containment, the quality of healthcare, vaccination coverage, overall mortality and progress toward restarting travel and easing border curbs, the Ranking captures which of the world’s biggest 53 economies are responding best—and worst—to the same once-in-a-generation threat.

The new Delta variant has defined the way we live with the virus for many across the world, places that stayed resilient amid the variant’s onslaught providing a new model for how the  world emerges from the pandemic.

In September, European nations dominated the top rungs of Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking for a third month, and we have a new No. 1—Ireland has taken pole position from Norway after steadily climbing the ranks from the start of 2021, when it had the worst outbreak in the world. In its monthly report published on Tuesday the news agency noted Ireland had been “steadily climbing” the rankings since the beginning of the year when it had experienced the worst outbreak in the world.

It noted a “startling turnaround” and national vaccination rates among the highest globally. Ireland took the top position from Norway, while European countries remain dominant in the higher rankings.

“Even as the peak summer travel season unfolded alongside delta’s spread, Ireland and places like Spain, the Netherlands and Finland held down serious illness and deaths through pioneering moves to largely limit quarantine-free entry to immunised people,” the report said.

“Bestowing more domestic freedoms on the inoculated helped boost vaccination levels to some of the highest in the world – over 90 per cent of Ireland’s adult population has received two shots – while allowing social activity to resume safely.”

Responding in a social media post, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the result was down to the hard work of the Health Service Executive (HSE) and the Irish public.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said the same resilience would see Ireland on a safe path to recovery coming into the autumn.

It pulled off the startling turnaround with a strategy used Europe-wide. Even as the peak summer travel season unfolded alongside delta’s spread, Ireland and places like Spain, the Netherlands and Finland held down serious illness and deaths through pioneering moves to largely limit quarantine-free entry to immunized people. Bestowing more domestic freedoms on the inoculated helped boost vaccination levels to some of the highest in the world—over 90% of Ireland’s adult population has received two shots—while allowing social activity to resume safely.

The country that was at the top of the chart, Norway, has seen riots in the past week following the lifting of all covid restrictions. The Norwegian government announced on Friday that most of the remaining coronavirus restrictions would be scrapped from Saturday and that life would return to normal.

The move included the lifting of social distancing rules and capacity limits on businesses, as well as the reopening of nightclubs. The unexpected announcement by prime minister Erna Solberg late on Friday afternoon took many Norwegians by surprise and led to chaotic scenes in the capital Oslo and elsewhere in the country on Saturday.

Rowdy celebrations across Norway by hundreds of citizens started on Saturday afternoon and lasted until the early hours of Sunday. Police said unrest was reported in several places, including in the southern city of Bergen and the central city of Trondheim, while the situation was worst in Oslo. Police in Norway registered at least 50 fights and disturbances during the course of the night.

Long queues were seen outside Oslo’s nightclubs, bars and restaurants late on Saturday. Neither vaccination status certificates nor negative test results for Covid-19 were required to enter such venues in Norway.

“That’s exactly what I predicted would happen,” according to one angry Oslo nightclub manager.“It was a life-threatening situation in the city because they [the government] didn’t give us at least a few days’ advance notice. This was a dangerous situation as police said all places were packed.”

Among other incidents, Norwegian media reported that police received an alert about a man carrying a machete on a bus in Oslo and people fainted while waiting to get into pubs in Trondheim.

“There was a significantly greater workload [on Saturday] than during the summer. There were a lot of people out already in the afternoon and it continued during the night,” Oslo police spokesman Rune Hekkelstrand told the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.

Denmark moved up six spots into the top five as high vaccination coverage enables it to lift restrictions while its outbreak is contained.

On the 10th September Denmark became the first European country to lift all covid restrictions. For residents in Denmark, it’s a tantalizing return to pre-pandemic times. As the last of the mask restrictions fell, for example, ticket controllers in commuter trains cheerfully informed masked travellers they could take off their face coverings. Those who were tourists opted to keep them on anyway, as one POLITICO reporter recently witnessed. Meanwhile, at Glyptoteket, an art museum in central Copenhagen, visitors crammed in to take advantage of the weekly admission-free day, with minimal masking and little regard for social distancing. Down the street, stages and stalls were preparing for revelers coming in for the World Pride gathering of activists and allies.

Along with the successful vaccine rollout, experts have pointed to high levels of trust in authorities. Almost three-quarters of adults are fully vaccinated and COVID-19 hospitalization rates are low.

In contrast, the delta variant has left the U.S. reeling. The world’s biggest economy dropped three spots to No. 28 in September as unfettered normalization, regardless of vaccination status, drove a surge in cases and deaths. Inoculation has hit a wall, with places that started shots later than the U.S. now overtaking it.

Southeast Asian economies continue to populate the Ranking’s bottom rungs in September, with Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines the last five. While the region’s outbreak may have peaked, their export-reliant economies are still struggling from the hit.

Once the gold standard for virus containment, the Asia-Pacific is faltering in the era of vaccination. Not only are their strict measures less effective in the face of delta, former top rankers in the region are also grappling with how to reopen after such a long period of isolationist border curbs.

No. 1 at the Ranking’s inception last November, New Zealand fell nine spots from August to No. 38. A delta incursion after months virus-free has left the country in varying degrees of lockdown, still seeking to stamp out infections as it strives to boost vaccination levels. Singapore, which is trying to pivot from a Covid Zero approach to a vaccine-led reopening, fell 11 rungs as what is increasingly apparent is that the pandemic is far from over—for some more than others.

Called “a shame on all humanity” by World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, vaccine inequality persists, confining developing economies to the bottom half of the Ranking. With so many countries barely inoculated, the risk of another destructive variant emerging has never been higher, just as rich nations grapple with waning immunity from the first round of shots.

Over the month of September Spain jumped eight places to No. 2 as its infection rate fell to the lowest level in more than a year.

Canada advanced 14 rungs, while the U.K. climbed six places to No. 16 after both nations eased travel curbs for fully vaccinated people.

Bangladesh edged up five notches as the country recorded its lowest number of daily deaths in nearly four months and schools reopened after being shut for more than 500 days.

What happens in one month can all change in the next month so we can hope that these new openings of countries don’t end up having to reimpose restrictions if the variant takes another hold.

Until the next time Stay Safe.

Total Cases Worldwide – 234,208,789

Total Deaths Worldwide – 4,790,934

Total Recovered Worldwide – 211,024,704

Total Active Cases Worldwide – 18,393,151 (7.8 % of the total cases)

Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 215,815,638

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

Other Resources:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/mass-brawls-reported-in-norway-as-country-celebrates-lifting-of-covid-restrictions-1.4684342

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-resilience-ranking/#notable-movers

https://www.politico.eu/article/denmark-first-eu-lift-coronavirus-restrictions/

 

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 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/