Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit and Health Minister, Dr Irvin McIntyre, attended talks in Barbados on Sunday to discuss the region’s response to the Coronavirus or COVID-19.
PAHO revealed on Sunday that there were three cases of COVID-19 in the Dominican Republic, two cases in St Maarten and one case in St Barts.
CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister Mia Mottley of Barbados, announced a news conference at the end of the talks that a regional protocol establishing minimum standards for dealing with the COVID-19 virus and other infectious diseases was approved that defines the roles and responsibilities of governments and the cruise line industry.
“We are setting out clear boundaries and responsibilities for individual partners, to increase our capacity to detect, increase our capacity to manage and increase our capacity to contain [the Coronavirus],” Mottley said.
She also disclosed that agreement was reached to establish a framework for an expanded bureau of Heads of Government to start discussions with regional and international partners to ensure countries are prepared to tackle any eventuality, “whether from our partners in the travel and tourism industry, from our partners in international financial institutions or regional financial institutions, or our regional and local private sector in order to be able to increase our capacity to contain and manage any outbreak.”
“And against that background, we have asked PAHO and the Caribbean Public Health Agency to help us with the identification of the gaps that exist within our respective member states that, as we move to marshall our resources, we will be in a position to help,” the CARICOM chairman stated.
Prime Minister Mottley warned against panic and stressed that countries, “will continue to be guided by the science and medical officials on the matter so that we can all times protect the health of our citizens and all visiting our territories and at the same time protect the economic stability of our region and countries given the fact that panic and fear can have a greater deleterious impact, a greater negative impact on our countries than COVID-19 itself.”
She called for region-wide public service announcements via traditional and social media to help citizens better understand the virus and prevent infection. She urged citizens to only seek information from credible, established sources at the local, regional and international level.
“We need to contextualize this and the one thing we cannot do, is to start to attack nationalities or countries or to get a level of xenophobia and to close off borders, to create barriers that will lead to loss of jobs, loss of economic activity, greater social implosion, greater opportunities for crime and all of the other things which are equally public health disorders,” Mottley cautioned.
The prime minister maintained that it was within the region’s capacity to detect, contain and manage the virus but it would require cooperation, partnership, discipline and communication.
A wide cross-section of officials including representatives from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), CARICOM Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS) and representatives of the leadership of the cruise ship industry and their representative bodies, the Florida Caribbean Cruise Associate (FCCA) and the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) participated in the deliberations.
Someone looks like he is tired and worried and has internal struggles. A face of despair.
“Someone looks like he is tired and worried and has internal struggles. A face of despair.”
Shaka, I concur. Looks as if that this person really “Scare-it”. Guess must be someone we know who has failed politically. We hope that a man as this is not suitable, nor intellectual and mature to run any poor, country in deep poverty over 20 years. We all Scare-it. This person never leads a poor island again. A big talker and a waste of time, with absolutely nothing of substance to offer us in our Dominica, who has abused our government and maybe also abused our tax money, where our hard own cash comes from.
We need mature, experienced people to run and managed and lead our nature Isle Dominica and its people to some level of decency. We therefore need someone who is experienced, mature, disciplined, no recorded Corrupted activities and is aware of the Protocal of good governance and decency in public office. No Red Clinic Bobol or other weird behaviour in Office. We need mature Hon…
A pic tells a million words.
Look at de minister of health, look at Skerrit face.
Skerrit most likely was shoved into that meeting whether he liked it or not…. from his facial expressions one can tell Skerrit is not a happy camper.
I said it before, when Irving retracted his utterings about Dominica being the first in the Caribbean to be able to test for Corona virus……BOTH de minister of health and Skerrit… YOU HAVE DOMINICANS IN A FALSE STATE OF HEALTHCARE READINESS!!!!
after an 18-3 election grab
Big words as usual! Action in short supply or rather non existent. What what does one expect…
Tell CARICOM members that each of the islands have a Prime Minister so let them do their job. We never voted for CARICOM so according to prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit tell them to “Go to Hell” we are not their damn business
Do u understand what is Caricom? Do u know that each one needs the other. Where u coming with your selfish attitude. United we Stand, divided we fall. Regardless of all u think of I, Myself and me, God created a people to be unified in love. We cannot do nothing to without our creator, Lord and Master. We are all nothing but “dirt”. So please stop preaching your selfish stories. You need to go further and understand the word love – not sexual love but Agape love. We need to put pride aside for this does not belong in God’s love Kingdom. Those who think that disease /sickness is for certain ethnic group u better come again. Where is our sympathetic heart? We blame and blame others for everything. We were created for our own selves. We were create to be a support for others . Stronger help & encourage weaker ones. Caricom is a love gathering of small caribbean islands who needs each other. Get this in your mind. Good for u if you do not need anyone.
“We were create to be a support for others . Stronger help & encourage weaker ones.”
You are so right, the truth has been told, that Skerrit and his government has failed us big time. What an incompetent Prime Minister and a highly failed incompetent Labour government.
We urgently need failed Skerrit out of our government. Skerrit is a failure and has ruined our nature Isle. iled our agriculture Sector, have our farmers as beggars, because he has now focussed on selling our passports to weird Tom, Dick and Harriette ad Scare-it.. We are really fed up with failed, immature Skerrit and his failed blind so called Labour over sized Government.
Dominica is seriously in need of change and Skerrit and his failed Labour govnment must “Get the Hell Out” of “Our Dominica Government” and our nature Isle Dominica. “Skerrit Get Lost”: You`re the biggest failure in our crippled Dominica you created.
We welcome decent professional Hon. Lennox Linton and his highly trusted UWP…
Sorry typo error – it should read we were not created for our own selves.
This sounds quite eventful. Let’s be unified in the fight against covid19.