HURST REPORTS ON CABINET of Wednesday 29 September 2021
The Cabinet was convened at about 10:15 am and ended its deliberations at about 4:00 pm, all members except one were present, both face-to-face and also by Skype.
The Director of Education and the Chief Medical Officer were invited to Cabinet to discuss the policy affecting the opening of schools and to provide advice.
I.i. The Cabinet determined, after consultations, that all Secondary School students eligible for the Pfizer vaccine, or of ages 12 to 18 years, and all secondary school-teachers and ancillary staff who have received at least one dose of any two-dose vaccine, are to return to face-to-face classrooms commencing Monday, 4 October 2021.
The opening of the government secondary schools will be phased, as determined by the Ministry of Education.
I.ii. The training of temporary teachers has begun, and will continue until the trainees reach sufficient competency levels, should they be required.
I.iii. All Primary Schools will close immediately, despite the Regulations which allowed for them to open on the condition that all teachers and staff are vaccinated; an opening date is not yet determined but the decision will be examined again in two weeks.
The decision today was based upon the number of unvaccinated people and the number of Covid-19 infected people in the wider population; fearing that those below 12 years-old may come into contact with infected persons and in turn bring the infection into the classroom, compelled the decision.
Those below 12 years are not eligible for any of the available vaccines. Teaching by distance learning is to continue for these students, both public and private.
- The Cabinet has authorized a “Reporting Mechanism” be created that will allow Directors and Permanent Secretaries to identify all those public servants who remain at home after September 30, 2021; the employees are not eligible to receive payment of salaries or wages by remaining at home after the two-week period of paid leave ends on Thursday.
3.i. The CMO surmised that virtually all Covid-19 deaths reported by the Sir Lester Bird Medical Center are likely to be people who were un-vaccinated.
The Dashboard does not explicitly identify whether the deceased was or was not vaccinated.
Although accompanying press releases point out that the dead person tested positive for Covid, they do not indicate whether the deceased was vaccinated.
Every attempt will be made to encourage the Sir Lester Bird Medical Center to include this bit of information on the daily Dashboard. At least one other CARICOM state carries this significant tidbit in its reporting.
3.ii. The CMO also provided advice to the Cabinet on the restrictions imposed last Wednesday by Cabinet. The decision was made by Cabinet to retain the curfew, 8:00 pm each night until 5:00 am each morning.
The restrictions placed on restaurants, allowing take-out only, will continue for two more weeks. The closure of gyms, clubs and bars will continue for at least two more weeks, depending upon a reduction of the number of infected people reported each week; beaches remain restricted, 5:00 am to 5:00 pm daily, excluding Sundays when they close at 12;00.
3.iii. The CMO reported that late presentation of the sick to the Sir Lester Bird Medical Center is responsible for many of the deaths; had the patients presented themselves sooner, the likelihood of saving their lives is greater.
3.iv. The Cabinet took umbrage at the statement by the Leader of the UPP that the deaths at the Sir Lester Bird Medical Center appear to be the fault of doctors and other staff there. His unwarranted swipe at the medical personnel at the Medical Center is unwarranted and reflects a willingness to pronounce before enquiring. The Cabinet condemns Mr. Lovell for his mean-spirited attack on the hard-working personnel at the Medical Center.
3.v. The Cabinet advised all patients who feel ill to report earlier to the Hospital so that they can be treated. The Cabinet advises that all adults and 12 to 17 year-olds are to take their vaccinations which are free and do not cost them any money.
3.vi. The Cabinet was advised by the CMO that one additional PCR Machine has been acquired, allowing the Sir Lester Bird Medical Center to process additional covid tests, and to lessen reliance upon CARPHA. The Trinidad based institution has imposed limits on the number of tests which any one Caribbean country can submit within a week.
3.vii. The Cabinet was also informed by the CMO that 10 Medical Doctors who have yet to commence their internship, have been hired to undertake contact tracing. These numbers are still not sufficient since the number of sick and infected people continues to increase almost daily.
- The Cabinet has set the national (community) immunity at 80,000 fully vaccinated. The number has just gone passed 42,000 fully vaccinated and approximately 8,000 partially vaccinated. Therefore, at least 30,000 additional adults and 12 to 17 year-olds still require vaccination.
- The Cabinet expresses condolences to the family of Mr. John Fuller, attorney-at-law, who has represented both the ABLP and the Government of Antigua and Barbuda in several matters before the courts, over time. Mr. Fuller died yesterday afternoon.
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What about boats and off shore excursions please???
so far, only one man in that business making his voice heard…???
Cabinet notes from 15th Sept 2021: All pleasure craft fetes, parties and entertainment events and excursions around the coastal waters and offshore islands are suspended immediately until *29 September 2021*
29 September was yesterday, history, passed. No further restrictions announced. So you can boat all you like. The world is supposed to be free! (P.S. you could have sailed anyhow…I spoke to the coastguard who said that as long as the occupants were members of the same household then they wouldn’t be enforcing anything…we went boating and had no issues…)
I was hoping the Cabinet would heed the request of the Employer’s Federation and mandate vaccines for all employees in the private sector, not just tourism and front line workers. Why the hesitation? Look at how many newly vaccinated people we have with the public service vaccine mandates. We had a big jump. That will happen again if private sector workers are mandated to take the vaccine and we will quickly approach the 80,000 mark required for herd immunity. We will not get there if there is no private sector vaccine mandate.
Please kindly speak for yourself
You people are still with this ‘herd immunity’ bs? There is no herd immunity with these so called ‘vaccines’. Look at Gibraltar which has 116% of their population ‘vaccinated’ , yet their cases are through the roof. Look at the real time data coming out of Israel. It’s ridiculous. Yet you gullible people still keep talking about this herd immunity when it has been proven that this does not exist with this ‘so called’ vaccine. I’m convinced that once you’re blind you indeed will never see.
@Jahknowstar THANK YOU ❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗❗
Why do you and others (or maybe you’re the same person) keep referring to Gibraltar as an example? Do your research before you spew dangerous and false narrative. Since the vaccines started being administered in early 2021 Gibraltar has had just 3 deaths compared to 94 before the vaccines. That’s pretty strong evidence to support the FACT that the vaccines prevent serious illness, hospitalisation and death. It is widely accepted that the vaccine does not guarantee you won’t contract COVID but it is also scientifically and empirically proven that it is very likely to stop you from getting seriously ill or dying and more importantly stops the health system from becoming overwhelmed.
Yes, cases are high
However death rates are low
That is the main purpose of the vaccines
Preventing serious illness and death
Don’t just post half of the narrative
No deaths had been recorded in Gibraltar for the past couple days.
true!
So true, yet they keep ignoring all these data to push their vaccination campaign.
you are one of the headless chickens running around kissing the government’s ass.
you yourself said herd immunity, what does herd apply to? it applies to animals. so you are encouring these criminals to treat ppl like animals branding them with the mark of the beast. if you want so much as to have these injections applied why dont you take it yourself for everyone?
give it time and you will not only see and hear business places being hit with lawsuits but you shall be seeing dead bodies all over.
when you come to realize that this has nothing to do with covid but its an agenda to place all yall sheep under the new beast system it will be too late to turn back
80,000 sounds a good target but will not stop the deaths from Covid.
The UK as already surpassed over 82% in the over 60’s but are still averaging 129 deaths per day and 36,000 new infections daily.
I believe we are only in the containment stage of this virus.
The doctors and scientists have a long way to go yet.
Cabinet needs to let restaurants and gyms re-open to vaccinated person only. These businesses will not survive much longer if this shutdown continues. Many will shutdown permanently. This is unfair. The owners and employees of these businesses are starving!
Vaccinated or not lockdowns don’t work. They’ve failed world wide.
This is simply incorrect. They have worked in Australia NZ and many other countries, even the US, where they were properly implemented. They have in fact worked here in Antigua. A lockdown is the only solution, unfortunately, to lower the numbers here right now, but the government is putting business profit ahead of health and lives. Even from the point of view of the business profiteers pushing to remain open it is illogical, because the high case numbers will deter tourists and businesses can’t stay open when their employees and customers are ill. The government need to put a levy on the big businesses here to pay for workers to stay home and subsidize small businesses to remain closed
They are not working because then those countries with fully vaccinated or high in numbers of VACCINATED should have lesser cases right? But in reality they have the most. Israel. Gibraltar. Look them up. The more they vaccinate, the more covid we’ll get. It’s really that simple.
We can add Singapore and Harvard Business school to the list. Norway on the other hand, has done away with all covid-19 restrictions and mandates because they’re not working.
I find we are hitting cabinet with the issues; but they are fragmented. in hindsight, a bipartisan council could have presented the nations issues collectively for cabinet review.
Excuse You? You vaccinated still catching and spreading covid so tell me what makes you more special? Yall deserve to starve just as much as any other who are having their jobs taken away because they dont want to put something that DOESN’T WORK in their body. Unfair? You thought you’d vaccine would make you special? Poor thing.
#HFWL is such a waste. It’s a pity his assertions have to be debunked thereby leaving him in the limelight. I heard him on Dave’s show yesterday and the man is soo desperate like when a girl has lost her first love.
JUST SAYING the whole of Antigua and Barbuda will now know that the Cabinet is engaging in blatant LIES and Politics in the statement it is attributing to Harold Lovell.
Tabor, the minute I heard Lovell’s statement, I knew it was a foolish statement to make as it would be perceived as an attack on the health care workers at the hospital even though he said it was not an attack on them. Who else could he have been referring to? Lovell is shooting himself in the foot with his positions on covid.
Its not an attack to just point out what could be a possible cause just like many people think it’s the doctors and nurses that are killing people. If data and facts are being hidden and forged to the liking of what the government wants to portray, how can we put it pass them? Questions have to be asked.
NOT SO COMMON you cannot be serious and we must have heard different statements. I am technologically savvy but I am trying to get the recording of Harold to post here so all can see how LIE and mischievous the Cabinet. In any other country Gaston admission that he broke the law (with the taking of the embargoed vaccine) and also implicating the Governor General as a party to the crime, he would have had to resign forthwith. Only in Antigua my brother where anything goes.
*I am not technologically savvy
Amb. Hurst, PLEASE choose your words carefully… I hardly think stating the vaccination status of a dead person is a ” tidbit: a small and particularly interesting item of gossip”
It surely is a relevant piece of information that will inform the public regarding the risk of being unvaccinated.
Risk? And what are the risk of being vaccinated? They don’t even want to tell yall that. They say the vaccine works and yall flock behind them without knowing the truth and doing your research. You can still catch it, give it to others, and be hospitalized. The other variants the vaccine was made for, it didn’t work or do it’s jobs much less against this delta? Lmfao yall gonna probably have to take a while other vaccine just for that variant real soon which of course, still won’t work.
Ya lie!
I know 5 people in the past 4 days alone that have had the vaccine and have been put down as Covid death. How can they sleep at night with this bold face lie!
You still trust these people? You still believe these people have your best interest at heart? Chupse!
Exactlyyyy! People don’t understand the realness of this. These people are literally trying to portray that vaccine works WHEN IT NAH WORK. Any That’s FREE is dangerous. If it was so effective, they wouldn’t be free cause things of value, have value. But someone people are ignorant and rather believe people who constantly lie. And that CMO need to take a seat because all respect for her is out the window.
You KNOW 5 persons who died in the past 4 days? And you KNOW they were all vaccinated? That sounds like the gospel truth and you have all right to accuse persons of lying.
I think you should tell the people that it is not true over 90% of the deaths globally now are the unvaccinated because you know that ALL the health authorities in over 200 countries are lying. I think you should keep advising people because hopefully you are as knowledgeable as well as truthful.
Actually those who keep listening to nonsense and not their medical experts deserve what they get.
I wonder if the Cabinet is making the above decision based on timing of newly vaccinated to get past the two week incubation period, after which we would start to see a credible decrease in numbers? Realistically the period of waiting for the number of cases to start subsiding could take us to the end of October.
The numbers will only increase. The more people who get vaccinated, the more covid spreads. Covid was dying down just before the vaccines were given out then we went downhill from there. Look up singapore Gibraltar and Israel.
True!
These overbearing mandates and restrictions have been proven useless. Have they stopped anyone from being infected? NO! Remove all restrictions and let people work and support thier families!
If these restrictions were all removed entirely, deaths would rise tremendously as bars and social events would rise up the covid numbers.
Deaths would be the same cause the restrictions changes nothing. Casing STILL GOING UP EVERYDAY regardless.
I agree. It’s just an abuse of power to keep people in line honestly. Or I guess covid is only transmissible from 8pm to 5am….nonsense.
We would also like to know how many that have died have taken the vaccine at all. This is also a useful tidbit. If they don’t provide we will know why.
Thankyou CMO for confirming what a particular lawyer (and others) have been saying. Early treatment is lacking. If the disease is so dangerous why wait until people are dying? You don’t have to wait until they contact you because as soon as the test is positive they take all kinds of information from you. EVERY person who tests positive should receive a bag with essential medication, vitamins as well as a phone call every few days to see how they’re doing. Get volunteers to do it. We know there are a lot of patriots all of a sudden. This is way cheaper than trying to find them a space in ICU. Mexico and other countries are already having success with this.
This sounds like an effective approach but I doubt they’ll do it cause they want these deaths to paint a picture for the unvaccinated. Everything they do ties to something else. This is deeper than covid and vaccines and many dont realize that.
Treatments like ivermectin that is effective 60-80% like many of the expensive, ineffective vaccine.
We all know that you would lie unashamedly and boldly to further your cause. Know that YOU LIED about what Harold Lovell said, and the news clip is there to prove it.
Eventually, even your people will get fed up of your obscene lies and turn on you. It is not sweet no more. They will be afraid you will lie so openly on them too.
Max, I hope that when you and Gaston die, you will have sufficient time to bare your soul and tell all the nasty things you do, as you plead with the Lord to redeem you.
Does this apply to preschool as well?
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