The Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) met virtually on Monday 13 September at its 16th Special Emergency Meeting to consider a regional response to the recent surge in infections, hospitalisations and deaths due to the COVID-19 virus across the Community.
The Heads of Government expressed deep concern at the increase with more than 100,000 new cases and 1400 deaths between July 2021 and 12 September 2021.
They received an update on the pandemic from the Executive Director of the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), Dr. Joy St. John, which noted that since the outbreak in March 2020, the Region has seen more than 300,000 confirmed cases with more than 6,700 deaths. Dr. St John stressed that the percentage of deaths was exceedingly high among unvaccinated people with less than one percent of deaths recorded by persons who were vaccinated.
Heads of Government expressed dismay at the rate of vaccination in the Community and the significant incidence of vaccine hesitancy. As of 3 September, according to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), vaccine coverage in the Community ranged from 58.7 percent in Bermuda to 0.1 percent in Haiti. The Heads of Government noted that no country was close to herd immunity and that the increased incidence of mutations and variants made it imperative for there to be a greater improvement in the rates of vaccination.
Heads of Government are strongly urging the people of the Community to get vaccinated, as failure to do so puts the health sector at great risk of being overwhelmed by the surge of COVID-19 cases. They called particularly, on the front-line workers, including nurses, doctors, security personnel and teachers to take the vaccines available given their critical roles in the society.
Heads of Government warned that the threat to the health, economic, education and security sectors was real, and called on all stakeholders to come together on this issue in the interest of the stability of the Member States and the Community. In this context, Heads of Government will consider the harmonisation of travel protocols, including for cruise ships.
Heads of Government agreed to the design of a Community Public Relations Strategy to supplement national campaigns to encourage citizens to vaccinate.
Heads of Government agreed to share excess vaccines, personal protective equipment and test kits. They also agreed to approach the COVAX Facility to grant the Community an exemption, which would allow vaccine doses from the Facility to be reallocated among Member States.
They also agreed to continue to advocate for vaccine equity and access as well as financing and debt sustainability at the United Nations General Assembly and the United States Global Covid-19 Summit, both to be held later this month.
Heads of Government also met with representatives of the United States and the United Kingdom to convey the gravity of the regional situation, and to make specific requests for assistance. They requested that the United States deliver the next batch of Pfizer vaccines donated to the Region earlier than originally planned and asked for field hospitals and the accompanying equipment to help ease the current strain on health facilities in Member States.
The request to the United Kingdom centred around the negative impact of the traffic light listing of countries which determines requirements for re-entry to the UK given the importance of that tourism market to the Region.
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Here go the talking heads again. They think they have clout but are yet to come up with a workable solution for the mess in Haiti and without resources are going to talk about Covid-19 pandemic. When these leaders show that they can deliver on important regional issues then they will be taken seriously. In the meantime, gobble-gobble 🤣
The chickens have come home to ruse. The fierce political partisan bickering throughout the CARICOM region and the Divide and Rule governance are clearly manifesting itself to a large degree in these crucial times.
Every one of the ruling political parties excludes the opposition from participating in the governance of each CARICOM member country. When a country is so divided the outcomes cannot be positive. We need to put our collective brain power to work for the betterment of each other.
Why not have a CARICOM summit like the one today, invite some of the Opposition leaders to come with their ideas and try to eek out some workable solutions. The opposition parties have sound ideas too.
We have to work together as brothers in order to prosper or hold on to our individualistic, selfish ways and perish as fools.
Relying heavily on tourism is a weakness of the region that is currently compromising the public health response to COVID. (Whatever happened to the concept of diversifying our economies?) According to one Jamaican interviewed recently, “They’re declaring a ‘no movement weekend’ while visitors are out partying at _____ (tourist spot), yet we now know that even vaccinated people can spread COVID”. People are confused.
The prognosis is real simple: Good plan or bad, it matters not if there’s insufficient buy-in from the people. For that, a collaborative approach is simply unavoidable.
What response? Make vaccine mandatory? To only still get COVID or one of its variant strains? To what ends? To open the region up again for tourism? If all you were smart you would focus on manufacturing and food production. We still in hurricane season.
We are not likely to reach herd imunity any time soon with tete dur