Better prepared!

Barbados is in a better position to respond to a possible second wave of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Word of this came from Minister of Health and Wellness, Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic, who also stated that the country is much more prepared in its capacity than when the first COVID-19 was diagnosed.

Bostic was speaking to the media ahead of receiving a donation of medical supplies from the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Barbados, Yan Xiusheng. The recent donation, which was the seventh batch of the medical supplies that China has provided to Barbados since the COVID-19 pandemic, included 5,000 N95 respirators and 40,000 surgical masks. These were handed over during a brief ceremony, which occurred at the Ministry of Health and Wellness’ Culloden Road, St. Michael headquarters.

“Barbados is in a far better position to respond to a second wave … than we were for the very first one and we are much better prepared in terms of our capacity and that is capacity in every area that you can think about and more importantly, we know a lot more about this virus now than we did when we first started.”

He added, “We can now rely on our own experiences here in country, in terms of the persons who have contracted the virus and the state of those persons in terms of health and how they have responded. We have a whole set of data that we have collected based on the previous cases that we are utilising to help us in terms of the move forward.” (MG)