Visitors to Barbados vaccinated against the coronavirus still need to be fully quarantined here when crossing certain countries where COVID-19 variants are prevalent. This step was supported by the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners (BAMP).
BAMP President Dr. Lynda Williams said Barbados could hardly afford to have one of the highly contagious variants here.
On Monday, Trinidad health officials confirmed that the highly transmissible Brazilian strain COVID-19 had been detected there.
The development comes a week after Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced that new protocols will apply to vaccinated visitors arriving here starting May 8, including a shorter quarantine period.
In an interview with Barbados TODAY, Dr. Williams, there is a possibility that when the Brazilian variant reaches Trinidad, it could reach the coast of Barbados despite limited travel from Port of Spain.
Dr. Williams said: “As of May 8th, when the new travel protocols come into effect, if anyone traverses a country with worrying variants, they will be placed in quarantine.
“Even if they are fully vaccinated, they must be quarantined for the entire time they have passed through a country that has several worrying variants. This is the measure we have introduced in the new travel protocols to deal with people who are they come from areas where there are worrisome variants, regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not. “
A list of these “high risk countries” would be provided by Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc (BTMI) and updated regularly.
Dr. Williams reiterated her request for variant testing to be performed here as other countries in the region, including Trinidad, are running their own tests.
She said although samples are being sent to the Port of Spain-based Caribbean Health Department, it is unclear whether they will be sent regularly.
Despite confirming the presence of the more virulent British strain – known as B-117 – in an explosion of infections since the beginning of the year, the Department of Health has yet to officially declare which of the cases, including deaths, are linked to the variant.
Dr. Williams told Barbados TODAY, “I made my concerns about variants and the need for variant testing in Barbados widely known, how important it is and how important it is to our tourism product.
“I would say they are doing it in Trinidad and there are many others who have offered to support us in this regard, but I don’t know how far the whole matter has progressed in terms of our progress that is regularly done in Barbados made.
“There’s the Indian variant and we don’t really know much about it, but it’s in the UK and if it’s in the UK it can possibly be here.
“We don’t know how much protection the vaccines offer, we don’t know there are so many strangers, and some tourism markets say they don’t really want their people to come to them unless we do variant tests and that’s up to us because a variant can of course develop anywhere.
“We can develop a Barbadian variant, and we have to know what is happening here on site.
“The fact is that we have to use all the resources we have as a country to achieve this and most likely we have to do this in cooperation as the setup for this type of testing in Barbados is very difficult.”
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