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Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Kenneth George (left) and Head of COVID-19 Monitoring Unit, Ronald Chapman, listening to a question during a press conference yesterday at the Ministry of Health and Wellness.

CO-OPERATION KEY

Outside of the vaccine, contact tracing remains the best weapon in the local arsenal in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the message being hammered home by Chief Medical Officer in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Dr. Kenneth George.

Speaking during a media conference held late yesterday evening, Dr. George reiterated the cruciality of contact tracing and urged members of the public to offer their full co-operation in the exercise. Noting that there were several persons that were hindering the efforts to stem the spread of the virus by offering incorrect and inaccurate information, Dr. George pleaded with everyone to do their part to help.

“We still encourage the public to co-operate with us. Because you may have a relationship outside the family home and you may not come and give us the relevant information. You may give us deliberately wrong numbers and fictitious contact information. That makes the process very, very difficult. We have had to reach out to the Royal Barbados Police Force on too many occasions to rein in persons which is a public health function and really doesn’t have much to do with law enforcement, but we have had to ask them come and help us along because of the wrong information and the dynamics within households,” he said.

Revealing that there were a few communities that were identified as hotspots and that the Ministry was working feverishly to rectify the situation, Dr. George added that he was aware that there were several types of housing arrangements, such as having multiple households on one portion of land, that had the potential to create perfect conditions for the virus to spread. However, he has some advice for all Barbadians to keep themselves and their families safe.

“I would encourage that families from a particular house, be careful how you integrate with families from another house. Because way too often what we are finding is that multiple households within a particular district are being infected because there is too much movement of individuals. And I would encourage Barbadians to assist us in this way for a period. For the next six to eight weeks, please remain to yourself. Wherever possible, remain on your premises and don’t invite people over to your households because that is how disease spreads.”

With Government constantly preaching the importance of safety, Dr. George said that it was all being done for the benefit of the country.

“This is why we have press conferences like these, because it is to get the public in a better place. It is to get the public to understand that COVID will be with us for another 12 to probably 18 months and that we need to be on our guard. We will be in this for the long haul and these measures need to become run-of-the-mill measures. In infection prevention and control, the whole issue has changed tremendously and even as we look in the future towards welcoming back tourists, it is going to be a totally different dynamic. A different paradigm because we know that we are living in different times,” he said. (MP)

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