Basseterre, St. Kitts, April 24, 2020 (SKNIS): The Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis has met all six of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines for relaxing restrictions but government will continue to listen to the experts to not endanger lives, said Prime Minister Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris, during his address to the nation on Friday, April 24, 2020.
The six guidelines are: controlling the transmission of the virus; ensuring that the local health systems are able to detect, test, isolate and treat every COVID-19 case and to trace every contact; ensuring that outbreak risks are minimized in special care settings such as healthcare facilities and nursing homes; instituting preventative measures in workplaces, schools and other places where essential services are offered; managing the risk of importing the virus from other countries/territories; and fully educating, engaging and empowering communities to live under the new normal.
“Dr. Laws and Dr. Wilkinson tell us that we can tick off each of these, that so far, we have been successful in our efforts. There has been a slow increase in confirmed cases. We have been assured that we have an aggressive contact tracing system in place and that we have tested all who need to be tested. They have reported that the latest batch of tests done this week have all been returned negative, all seventeen (17) of them. We are flattening the curve,” said Prime Minister Harris.
Dr. Harris noted that the government will continue to be guided by local experts, noting that “whatever we do, we seek the advice of our medical experts headed by the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Hazel Laws and the Medical Chief of Staff, Dr Cameron Wilkinson.”
PM Harris commended residents for their zeal to get back to work.
“As we continue restrictions to maintain social distancing protocols to slow down the transmission of COVID-19 and help our country cope with this pandemic, we are mindful that as a people, we have this deep sense of pride, that we want to work, that we have to provide for ourselves and our families and be thoughtful about how we go about easing restrictions.”
-30-
