Cabinet disagrees with Doctor that tourists are main COVID spreaders

14

CABINET NOTES:

The Cabinet strongly disagrees with the doctor who publicly stated that the imported infections came from visiting tourists, and not from the returning nationals and residents.

The evidence garnered from contact-tracing clearly shows the origin of the vast majority of imported infections came from those whose levels of intimacy are greater than the visiting tourists.

Too many residents and returning nationals who were placed in quarantine were seen walking the streets, visiting banks and supermarkets, and otherwise mixing freely when they were ordered isolated or quarantined.

The vexing assertion that tourists were free to roam but returning nationals were frequently confined has already been discussed fully.

The levels of intimacy between those who are resident and those tourists who are entering Antigua differ, requiring a commonsense approach that is based on logic, the Cabinet asserts.

The test of the correctness of this policy is manifested in the end results showing no new infections or hospitalizations in the past three weeks.

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14 COMMENTS

  1. Just a minute ANR. Who said tourists are main spreaders of Covid-19? Not me.

    I said the main spreaders of Covid-19 are local residents BUT tourists bring Covid-19 into Antigua and Barbuda as well.

    The evidence is there.

    To pretend otherwise is foolish and to turn what I said upside down is also foolish.

    The simple point is that Covid can be spread by anyone. We carry our diseases and infections when we travel as tourists and tourists do the same when they come here.

    As Christopher Columbus if you think me lie!

    • @Dr+Lester+Simon…👣🏖”as(k) Christopher Columbus,” the bare feet, barefaced, sticky hands criminal and terrorist, to this I’d say, Christopher Columbus, and his legacy was and still is, damned liars.

      At this juncture, of this #PlanDEMIC the relevance of who was, or is still responsible for bring this enemy COVID-19 like Columbus to Our shores is a mute issue, and is simply being used as talking points.

      The real and true issue is, going forward with opening back up the ports to more international travel(cruise ships to increase private and commercial airlines), the Wuhan Ninja Virus and its Ragtime Band of #Mutants will return for another round of jamming what are the plans to deal with this #War, then?

      • @Ras Smood

        Remember we were not from here originally. We were from Africa. The peoples that lived here were the indigenous Siboney Indians. We were brought over after our own people, our brothers and sisters sold us off as slaves to foreigners to work the fields.

        The diseases foreign to the native Siboney Indians killed them off.

        This is history and we continue to make the same mistakes.

    • Welcome back Dr. Lester Simon like ANR rub you the wrong way. I ask you a question via this same media on the 17th June 2021. You never answered but that is ok. I got my answer two weeks later in the Daily Observer. Congratulations you finally came from under the minister’s coattail. Let me say finally Antigua will be texting for covid 19 in the communities.

      Under this caption:
      Knight In Shining Armour
      June 18, 2021 At 7:53 am
      CABINET NOTES: Thursday, June 17 2021
      June 18, 20210

      Cabinet

      1.i. The Cabinet received an update on Covid-19 and learned of the very attractive data showing Antigua and Barbuda as the only independent state in this hemisphere with zero new cases in about one week, zero hospitalizations for Covid, and zero active Covid cases.

      I have one question for Dr. Lester Simon are we testing for Covid 19 in the communities of Antigua and Barbuda? I will await your honest answer Sir.

    • Anyone can spread COVID

      And anyone coming to the country can bring it in

      When you have many more tourists coming in than anyone else, they will bring it in more than anyone else

      This is why it is silly to have a two tiered pandemic policy. Everyone arriving should be subject to the same standards – tests on arrival and at least a few days quarantine and tests again

      As for the covid reported numbers, The Antiguan government has never been honest in this regard

  2. Doctor Simon, I am well aware, is more than capable of defending his statement and calling out the misrepresentation made by others. That being said, what Dr. Simon initially said makes sense. Anybody can and do spread this infection.
    In neighbouring St. Kitts, where their numbers were pretty impressive turned upside down when one tourist arrived there from Argentina and came with a negative test, however tested positive days later, but not before coming into contact with the staff member of the establishment tasked with cleaning his room. She, in turn travelled in two buses, to get to her home, infected members of her family, to include children, went to the supermarket where others got infected. The schools that her children attended had to be closed. Today there are three deaths within the past two weeks that are said to be COVID-19 related, one of whom was fully vaccinated, there are over 250 positive cases.
    Now, whilst the ‘overall spread’ can be viewed as local, it was the visitor who was the’ primary source’.

  3. The real foolishness is this: We are aware that everyone can spread the virus, and yes, there are always people that are not careful, but considerations and decisions (healthwise and economically) need to be balanced to make it work.

    Yes, there was a bad explosion of cases in winter, when returning nationals were not careful enough, but it just takes one case of the Delta variant (currently very active in Europe) to arrive here, to get us all in trouble again.

    And we are not preventing this by putting all nationals thru a PCR test upon arrival and quarantine, while tourists can walk through with a 7 (!!) day old test.
    Not 48 or 72 hours – a 7 day old test! Absolutely useless.
    And saying that they go to a hotel “in a bubble” “to quarantine” is a joke, cause the day after, they book a tour and mingle with everyone.

    I’m hoping for the best, but I’m not sure, if we are able to economically survive the next lockdown when the predicted autumn wave starts….

  4. We all know where the infections started on the island, in the tourist heavy areas. The policy of quarantining locals but letting tourists roam free is obviously the reason the virus got started here. Locals on the whole have been very good at following precautions, but my own experience is that tourists feel they don’t need to mask up etc. The government obviously has to blame the victims , the locals, in this case, otherwise they and their hotelier backers would be seen to be to blame.

  5. Cabinet disagrees with doctor that locals are the main covid-19 spreaders, cabinet disagrees with fishermen on how to catch fish, cabinet disagrees with pilots on how to fly a plane and cabinet disagrees with building contractors on how to build a house.

  6. The motto here is that locals don’t make big campaign contributions – Hoteliers do.

    So we can fully expect the geniuses in Cabinet to overrule the trained Dr. They have decided that Dr Simon’s expert opinion does not fit in with their narrative.

    Good to see Dr Simon speaking the honest truth and not being intimidated by the minister who knows everything

  7. Welcome back Dr. Lester Simon like ANR rub you the wrong way. I ask you a question via this same media on the 17th June 2021. You never answered but that is ok. I got my answer two weeks later in the Daily Observer. Congratulations you finally came from under the minister’s coattail. Let me say finally Antigua will be testing for covid 19 in the communities.

    Under this caption:
    Knight In Shining Armour
    June 18, 2021 At 7:53 am
    CABINET NOTES: Thursday, June 17 2021
    June 18, 20210

    Cabinet

    1.i. The Cabinet received an update on Covid-19 and learned of the very attractive data showing Antigua and Barbuda as the only independent state in this hemisphere with zero new cases in about one week, zero hospitalizations for Covid, and zero active Covid cases.

    I have one question for Dr. Lester Simon are we testing for Covid 19 in the communities of Antigua and Barbuda? I will await your honest answer Sir.

  8. The Antiguan government thinks people are stupid.

    Tourists outnumber returning nationals at least 1000 to 1.

    Tourists are not quarantined or tested on arrival but returning nationals are.

    So, yes, of course tourists are bringing most of the disease simply because there are many many more of them and they undergo no restrictions on arrival.

    As for intimacy, the tourists interact with locals in all different ways – at the supermarket, bars, in cabs, with housekeepers, in brothels, and in dating, partying and social situations

    I know one med student who has been back and forth to Antigua a dozen times since the start of the pandemic and she stays with her local boyfriend each time. She’s never been quarantined or tested on arrival

  9. Which member of cabinet has an education in the medical field? Not a single one of them. But so long as qualified medial experts don’t agree with their game plan, the cabinet members disagree with them. As we can see it’s all about money in their pockets even at the cost of our well being. That’s the modus operandi of the septic tank gang. And they knight each other for that, what a joke.

Comments are closed.