Now that the island has opened its doors for those visitors who are fully vaccinated, there is a strenuous demand on health officials at the ports, and lab personnel, to carry out the necessary protocols regarding testing. With an expectant flood of visitors eager to travel and take advantage of a chance to come to Anguilla — even in this pandemic era — it means that our Ministry of Health must ramp up its capacity to meet COVID-19 testing demands.
In the last press conference held on July 5th, the Chief Medicval Officer (CMO), Dr. Aisha Andrewin, alluded to the fact that the health staff at the ports, and at the lab, are working hard and diligently, but that they should not be abused: “With our limited resources, we have processed an inordinate number of persons in a few days. We have done hundreds of tests in record time. I want to thank the port and lab staff — for this was no easy feat. There is a question of burn out, and we do not want to run our human resources into the ground. They have been really going above and beyond. They have been working very hard.”
Picking up the strain, the Permanent Secretary, Mr. Foster Rogers, said that the only solution to this impending problem of workers’ burnout is to get our vaccination numbers up: “We have always indicated that testing is not something we can do forever. Even with these limited number of visitors coming to our shores now, the work to process them is astronomical. In normal times, pre-pandemic for example, much more people would have visited Anguilla per day, than we have seen over the past few days.
“If we get say 500 or 600 visitors per day, to process all these over the long term will be real tough.”
The PS observed: “We have always said that in order for us to open back up properly, we have to get our vaccination numbers up to a level where the public is protected. And because that level of vaccinations has not been attained as yet, we have had to revert to this rigorous testing protocol.”
Mr. Rogers continued. “People must understand that when we had to close down the country in April/May, due to that cluster, the financial impact on Anguilla was astounding. The Government lost millions of dollars; people couldn’t work; there were no salaries to sustain our people. The impact was severe. So we cannot have a situation again where the country is not vaccine-covered — where we get another cluster of 50 or 60 infected people and have to shut down again.”
He went on: “If we had enough vaccine coverage, there might be a few infected persons coming to the country still, of course, but because we are covered with an acceptable level of vaccination, we would not have to panic, or shut down, because we would be in safe standing.
“Therefore, for now, in the absence of that optimum level of vaccination, the Health Authority must carry out these tests which are very taxing on the port and lab staff.”
Mr. Rogers added: “There may be some people who would say, ‘Don’t worry about those who refuse the vaccination — whatever happens to them, let it happen.’ But we cannot function that way.” “We must look out for the health of the entire country.”
– Staff Reporter, James R, Harrigan
