Unilateral approach to COVID in the C’bean sets a dangerous precedent, PM warns

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Prime Minister Gaston Browne, warning that the COVID-19 risk classification system in the Caribbean is “arbitrary and incredibly flawed”, says it also sets a “very dangerous precedent, which serves no useful purpose”.

Browne was commenting after his government again criticised the decision by Barbados to place the island on “medium risk” status that St John’s said would mean that Antiguans and Barbudans would have to be placed in quarantine for 14 days on their visit to Barbados.

“It is reprehensible for Barbados, or any other country in the Caribbean Community to apply its own arbitrary risk classification to a member state, when a regional standard has been established by CARPHA (Caribbean Public Health Agency), unanimously agreed to by Caricom heads,” Browne said.

He warned that “this is a very dangerous precedent, which serves no useful purpose, but to undermine regional solidarity, during this period of crisis, when there should be heightened cooperation and collaboration,” he added.

Earlier this week, Foreign Affairs Minister Everly Paul ‘Chet’ Greene gave Barbados until Tuesday to explain its position or it would take the matter to the Caricom.

Cabinet this week “provided the prime minister with a mandate to write to his Barbadian counterpart regarding the articulating of its own COVID-19 standard and its disregard of the accepted CARPHA standard, when Barbados placed Antigua and Barbuda in a category that defies the agreed-to standard set regionally.

“The impact of this unilateral decision has affected the decision-making by international carriers considering flights to Antigua,” according to a statement issued after the Cabinet meeting.

In his letter to Prime Minister Mottley, the Antigua and Barbuda leader noted, “our two countries have suffered when other countries and regions have unilaterally applied classification to them.

“Most recently, the arbitrary classification of Barbados by the European Union as a “high risk’ country regarding anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing, was rightly protested by you and your government. My government, and I, personally, raised our voices in support of Barbados to decry this arbitrary action,” Browne wrote.

He told his Barbadian counterpart, she will no doubt “understand his government’s “deep concern about Barbados’ classification of Antigua and Barbuda as “high risk” or “medium risk” when the facts tell a quite different story.

“You will further appreciate our disquiet when Barbados departs from the position taken by Caricom Heads of Government to apply the CARPHA standard of 20 active cases for a population of 100,000. In Antigua and Barbuda’s case, we have only four infected persons, well below the threshold set by CARPHA”.

He said that the “unilateral” classification of the island by Barbados has received international attention and has led to further anxiety in his country given the struggling tourism sector and the impact on employment here.

He called on Mottley to personally intervene in the situation to ensure that the regional standard set by the Trinidad-based CARPHA and agreed to by regional leaders is applied to by the Barbados authorities and placing Antigua and Barbuda in the “low risk” category which it deserves.

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14 COMMENTS

  1. When you can trust each country to not hide cases to artificially maintain low numbers

    Which is what Antigua is doing

    And therefore Barbados should protect her people

    Time for the tantrum to end and how about actually protecting Antiguans

    • Do you know that Antigua is hiding the true numbers of Covid? If you know the true numbers let us know. How do you know the other islands are not hiding their numbers. Barbados having it in only for Antigua?

      • Compare what Antigua is doing to manage COVID (hint: not nearly enough) to what other countries are doing and then compare the numbers of positive cases adjusting for population

        Antigua’s numbers make no sense. They are artificially low

        Hiding cases will not stop the spread of the disease

        See story on front page about imported worker and the massive F-up there which very realistically could lead to massive outbreak

        Everyone should be concerned about this incompetent and dishonest pandemic response

        • It’s good thing the PAHO authority don’t have to listen to you. You keep you conspiracy theory going it will help you in whatever you are trying to achieve

  2. Oh its crying time again.Please Mommy Mia,I am begging you to hear me.That is what would happen.When you are obnoxious and abrasive towards others.You may do that to your political rivals in Antigua and Barbuda and get away with it.However,the Leaders of other Nations in the territory.They do not have to listen and put up with your bull dung.It is now coming back to bite you in your backsides.

  3. In a world of instant global communication between everyone, there are no more secrets.

    We are coming into 2nd lockdowns, globally. Protests turn into uprisings, breaking supply chains, by Feb 2021.

    Truth and science behind EMF and CV. Speaks to HIV not transmitted by air and all pandemics follow distribution of new electromagnetic fields/tech.

    1. Viruses not airborne, they transfer blood to blood.
    2. Viruses pass through masks like a fly through a picket fence.
    3. If you can smell anything through your mask, you’re not protected from airborne particles as small as a virus.
    4. Masks do not prevent spread of viruses (written on the box), reiterated by CDC.
    5. ALL pandemics immediately follow EMF propagation of new-to-humans electromagnetic waves, ie: telegraph, telephone, radio, radar, 5G AND seasonal tilt in Earth’s EM torroidal field.
    6. Wuhan is first city in China to launch city-wide 5G… just before the “pandemic”.4G is 600-700 MHz VS 5G microwaves at 2.5-3.7 GHz AND High-band 25–39 GHz. 5G began deploying worldwide in 2019
    7. We get seasonal colds/flus because of EMF changes in our environment, from the earth-axis tilt, which changes the angular momentum of its torroidal field, which repatterns the human EM torroidal field, via inductance. This triggers the body to realign its polarity on a molecular level and electromagnetically/chemically recalibrate, by producing viruses that purge toxins out of the body, based on discordant frequencies.
    8. CV pandemic is propaganda designed to break global economies, for NWO globalists to take full control of global economies and humanity. The first strategy was fake global warming, designed to tax energy, b/c controlling energy, controls economy.
    9. Do your research. Don’t be “too smart to look” b/c MSM/globalist-systems programmed us to uphold the “norm”..
    10. Research “Viruses Triggered by Evolution In Electromagnetic Frequencies, ie 5G”

    1918: Spanish Flu – First Transcontinental Telephone Call 1915. Ten million Bell system telephones were in service throughout the U.S by 1918.

    1957: Asian Flu – Hong Kong television began May 1957, followed by Asian flu pandemic that same year.

    2003: SARS – From 2002-2003, 3G networks launched globally at 400 MHz to 3 GHz: SK Telecom and KTF in South Korea, and Monet in the US.

    2019: COVID-19 – Wuhan is first pilot city to launch 5G in China. China Mobile Hubei activated 1,580 5G base stations in the city, mid-October, 2019. 5G began deploying worldwide in 2019.

    CDC says 94% of CV deaths in US had underlying medical conditions

    CDC CV fatality rates by age group:
    0-19: 99.997%
    20-49: 99.98%
    50-69: 99.5%
    70+: 94.6%

    CDC – 177,000 Americans died 2017-2018 flu season, from the flu itself or complications of pneumonia. CDC estimates CV directly caused only 11,000 (6%) of the 187,000 attributed deaths, up to the end of Aug 2020.

    FINAL NOTE… 2nd lockdown will cause uprisings so big, they topple global governments.

      • True or false, we won’t have to wait too long before all of it becomes self evident.
        I find it interesting that you dismiss this information without making ANY case against it. I too could say to YOU – everything you wrote is completely false. Ha!

  4. Are we going to have to read story after story of the PM bullying the lady PM because she’s trying to protect her people?

    • where is dumbo bullying the lady PM? does she read his drivel much less respond? Doubt she knows Gasritis Browne the clown exists,

  5. The classification was done for cheap tourism points. When the cases in the caribbean is small tourist will be more willing to come because they feel safe, but we were classified as high risk, by Bds as they market themselves.The amount of test we did for our population is not impressive to some countries.

  6. I wonder with all the negative of what all you guys say that the region has been looking up to Antigua for being the first to have put policies in place and opened its airport for tourists, yet not one major spread yet from any tourist to the local population. The spread has mainly come from our own nationals who have breached the protocols that we have established.
    Caricom remains a talkshop when each island takes unilateral actions against another, rather than what was discussed and agreed to. And the same goes for OECS. Sometimes I just want to give up on Caricom. And to think that Mia had just chaired the organization.

  7. The PM is contextually right on this one. Read the story and do not judge the story based on past happenings.

    How could you not agree with his position?

    We must start to see things on their own merit.

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