Caribbean islands continue to grapple with Covid cases, vaccinations – Travel Weekly
I took a deeper dive into the updates from 17 Caribbean destinations that were presented in rapid-fire succession during the CTO Zoom in mid-September.
The updates were succinct, to be sure, and the presenters, most of them ministers or directors of tourism, delivered them in an upbeat but cautionary tone in the face of rising community transmissions of Covid or the Delta variant.
But even two weeks out, there are more recent reminders that the Caribbean is playing catchup with Covid.
Remedies and measures large and small are being tried to stem the rising Covid tide among locals.
Barbados’ ministry of finance Ryan Straughn acknowledged in the Barbados Advocate that Covid cases were continuing to increase and local hospitals are stretched to their limits, but as long as the vaccine program can reach all Barbadians, he was confident that it would be successful.
Operation times at vaccination centers in Barbados have been extended. The Sunday night curfew has been moved from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., giving people more time to be out in public and less time in private homes, where transmission chances are greater.
In Grenada, vaccination numbers are slowly inching upwards and new cases are beginning to decrease, according to the Ministry of Health. Close to 25% of the population has been vaxxed, and the government mandates vaccination for its hotel workers.
Some parishes in Jamaica are seeing vaccine hesitancy as the reason for low turnout at vaccine centers despite intensified public education campaigns. As of Sept. 30, 7.7% of Jamaicans had been vaccinated, The country is targeting full vaccination of 1.9 million people by March.
September numbers for new Covid cases decreased in the Bahamas, but the situation remains dire, according to former minister of health Dr. Duane Sands.
Test positivity rates remained high, with a rate of 19% on Sept. 27, according to the Nassau Guardian.
Sands said that testing needs to be increased. “We are nowhere near where we can breathe a sigh of relief,” he said. “The healthcare system remains overwhelmed … we’re challenged with finding nurses and other health personnel to cover these patients,” he said, calling the situation “a very, very grim scenario.”
So, 18 months into the pandemic, Covid remains very much a health crisis in many of the islands, despite intensified vaccination campaigns, incentives, public service announcements and vaccine centers set up in rural areas.
Kudos to those destinations that have managed to contain cases at low levels, praise to the carriers that have committed to pre-Covid flight schedules and the cruise lines that have resumed port calls, gratitude to the medical professionals who continue to care for Covid victims and to the hospitality workers and business owners and all who have navigated through these difficult times.
There’s still a lot of work to be done. The Caribbean’s peak season, often called the festive season as the holidays near, begins next month. Let’s hope it is indeed festive.