St. Vincent and the Grenadines, on Friday, announced mandatory measures, breach of which will be ticketable offences, as the country combats community spread of COVID-19.
Additional measures under the Public Health Act of 2020 have been recommended and statutory rules and orders are being drafted for a ticketing system to support these measures.
The new measures will remain in effect for four weeks, in the first instance.
Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Roger Duncan, told a press briefing that health authorities had noted that as the country transitions from one phase of the pandemic to the next, there would be changes to the action taken at each phase.
The new measures include the mandatory wearing of facemasks in all public vehicles.
All public vehicles may now only transport a maximum of half of their permitted number of passengers.
Duncan noted that the half will include both the driver and the conductor.
Face masks must also be worn in all public and private establishments to which the public has access.
Duncan said that there is to be no in-establishment dining at restaurants and bars and only take-away services will be allowed.
The gathering protocols will be enforced with particular emphasis on bars, gambling sheds, and rum shops.
“They will be enforced,” Duncan said.
“As the Minister [of Health] had indicated, we really hope that the entire population takes into consideration what we have just shared with you, take into consideration your own personal and family risk and do all you possibly could on your part to mitigate these risks,” Duncan said at the briefing at which Health Ministry St. Clair “Jimmy” Prince announced community spread in the country.
At the press briefing, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Simone Keizer-Beache also detailed the latest data on the COVID-19 pandemic in SVG.
“We still continue to promote the good old-fashioned things that we have been speaking about for months. Please keep your distance, please wear a mask in public places and please sanitise your hands,” Duncan said.
According to the World Health Organisation, community transmission of COVID-19 is “evidenced by the inability to relate confirmed cases through chains of transmission for a large number of cases, or by increasing positive tests through sentinel samples (routine systematic testing of respiratory samples from established laboratories)”.
As of Thursday, SVG had 1,170 cases of COVID-19, of which 142 were imported and eight import-related.
The country has 1,021 local cases, 494 of which are from contacts of known positive cases, 177 from persons who presented with flu-like symptoms and tested positive.
The health ministry said that 500 of these cases are under investigation and 790 cases are active.
COVID-19 has claimed three lives in SVG.
Failures after failures! When will see anything positive?
I hope this is not now the law. As time goes by governments are either by their own will or from pressure from banks or a frightened public, taking away the people’s Liberty. This is not going well. Obviously in SVG it is an uninformed, therefore (unfortunately) “dumb” public that is demanding the government take our liberty from us, in order (what these dumb people believe) will make us “safe”. Even though such measures HAVE NEVER WORKED ANYWHERE ON EARTH, instead have made things MUCH WORSE! Not only that, the future is going to be much worse as a result. WAIT UNTIL WE HAVE TO PAY FOR ALL THE LOSSES IN REVENUE through inflation and much higher taxes !!!!! ….because we (the masses of uninformed or “dumb” people) asked for it, without considering the consequences.
We are doomed by our own fear and stupidity!
I hope this is not the start of dictatorship.
Since it is a proven fact, based on all PEER studies that masks do not help (even Anthony Fauchi said this at the beginning), why then are we to be forced to endanger our health by being FORCED to wear a mask. If you get a headache from wearing a mask it is a symptom of OXYGEN DEPRIVATION TO THE BRAIN! In children it usually causes, by small degree, eventually a form of mental retardation. Over long periods it can cause permanent learning disabilities. In adults it is also not pretty. I saw a woman in Kingstown who passed-out because she was wearing a mask. I was there when she revived. She did not know where she was for almost half a minute, luckily someone took her mask off as she lay there by the side of the road!
I am not against CO2 in the environment (BECAUSE IT IS NOT, REPEAT, NOT POLLUTION) However, CO2 is for plants, not for humans to breath over and over again because of wearing masks!
Sad. We are living in the age of disinformation. This fact alone should cause us to search for the truth and ignore those that get paid high salaries to lie to us, such as CNN.
So what do you expect if you open your borders! Ralph believe SVG was immune to the pandemic. The world leaders who treated the virus with kid gloves are paying for it now.
From zero to over 1000 cases shows how fast this virus can spread. Jomo mentioned recently that Ralph was not wearing a mask. I will say, “Don’t worry Jomo, he may soon regret it”.
Let us hope that this is not the beginning of a “lite” version of “THE GREAT RESET” coming to SVG. Here the excellent journalist William Engdahl writes his early opinion of this Global Agenda…coming to a country near you!
https://www.globalresearch.ca/after-covid-davos-moves-great-reset/5735441