These are uncertain times not only for the Caribbean Community, but for the entire world and the only way uncertain times can be appropriately overcome is through collective leadership, foresight and partnership”, Chairman of the Caribbean Community, (CARICOM), Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley said at a press conference following a special meeting in Barbados on Sunday.
The meeting brought together some Heads of Government, Caribbean Ministers of Health and their chief medical officers.
There were also representatives from the Pan American Health Organization, the Caribbean Public Health Agency, the Caribbean Community Implementation Agency for Crime and Security and the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency.
Chief executive officers of cruise lines were also invited to the special session.
“One of the things that we did was to establish a framework for an expanded bureau of heads of government”, Mottley announced.
“The sub-committee of the Bureau, expanded bureau, so it will be Barbados, St. Vincent, St. Lucia and Antigua, will start work immediately to see how in partnership with CARPHA and PAHO we can work with these stakeholders to see how we can marshal the resources necessary to immediately meet our concerns, nationally, regionally and with our partners, particularly in the case of the cruise industry, those of us that are home-porting have particularly different responsibilities from those who are just a cruise destination”, she explained.
The meeting also considered recommendations from the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) Working group on regional coordination for management of the virus and other infectious diseases on passenger ships.
“I’m particular pleased with the commitment of the cruise industry to maintain a clear line of communication and to ensure that one critical aspect of managing this risk and that is to ensure that pre-boarding screening is done in a very extensive and effective way”, said Antigua & Barbuda’s Minister of Health Molwyn Joseph, the chairman of COHSOD.
“Our highest responsibility at Carnival Corporation and therefore our top priorities are always excellence and safety, whether that’s marine safety, or health safety, environmental protection and compliance. Those are our highest responsibilities and out top priorities and I’m sure a number of the others in the industry share that”, said Arnold Donald, CEO of Carnival Corporation.
CARICOM Chairperson Mottley insisted the ability to scale up surveillance at ports of entry, identify quarantine and isolation facilities, enhance the training of frontline staff and strengthening the budgetary capacity is really at the center of what we mean when we talk about building capacity.
“Panic and fear can have a greater deleterious impact and greater negative impact on our countries that in fact the epidemic of COVID-19 itself”, Mottley cautioned.
“Because we are living in a world where in the last decade alone, air travel has virtually doubled, because we are living in a world where communication is as easy as picking up this phone and using it, it means that we are facing new forces in our ability to detect contain and manage any public health outbreak, not just this one”, she said.
“In some countries, mosquito-borne diseases pose a greater likelihood of problem for our people than COVID-19 so we need to contextualize this and we need to recognize that 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 and to create barriers that will in fact lead to loss of jobs, loss of economic activity, greater social implosion, greater opportunities for crime and all of the other things that are equally public heath disorders”, Mottley said.
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