By TANYA SMITH-CARTWRIGHT
tsmith-cartwright@tribunemedia.net
THE Pan American Health Organization has again stressed that public health measures, including lockdowns, are the main tools for flattening the curve when there is a rise in COVID-19 cases.
This came out of PAHO’s weekly COVID-19 update when the organisation’s incident manager for COVID-19, Dr Sylvain Aldighieri, spoke to what he feels impacts the region’s rise in coronavirus cases.
“At this moment in the pandemic, in many Caribbean countries, the public health measures, including lockdowns, are the main tools for flattening the curve,” he said.
“The public health measures, when strictly implemented and strictly monitored, will have an impact on the reproductive rate of the epidemic and, therefore, this will help to reduce the number of severe cases and decrease the burden on health services, including intensive care units.”
Just this week, president of the Consultant Physicians Staff Association Dr Sabriquet Pinder-Butler also mentioned that implementing “modified restrictive measures” may work in reducing the numbers of COVID-19 cases as Bahamians who have “COVID fatigue” might be dropping their guards and not practising protocols.
Amped up testing is a recommendation made by many healthcare professionals and PAHO’s director, Dr Carissa Etienne, is pushing the same message.
“Countries must re-prioritise testing and contact tracing at the primary care level to protect the lives and livelihoods of our people,” Dr Etienne said. “We must also strongly advise those who are sick to isolate themselves to avoid getting others sick.
“Prioritising prevention also means that we need to be proactive in our communication campaigns to remind younger, working-age populations of their risk, and the need to protect themselves – including by getting vaccinated when it’s their turn.
“While vaccines are being rolled out as fast as possible, they are not a short-term solution –we can’t rely on vaccines to bring down infections when there’s not enough vaccines to go around. They are one part of the comprehensive response that includes prevention through public health measures and improving readiness of health systems.”
Over the last week, more than 1.3 million people were infected with COVID in the region and more than 36,000 died from COVID-related complications.
Almost 40 percent of all global COVID deaths reported last week took place in this region. Dr Etienne said the region is still in the midst of an ongoing crisis and is calling upon regional citizens to get vaccinated.
“Vaccine safety is always a top priority,” the PAHO director said. “All vaccines go through the same process of trial phases before they can be approved for use in the population. The vaccines that have been approved by WHO, who have received the emergency use listing, are safe and do protect us from COVID.
“Yes we have some healthcare workers, especially in the Caribbean, (who are) worried about vaccines due to the same concerns that have circulated in the general public. We continue to work with healthcare leaders to improve vaccine uptake and dispel those myths and to urge everyone to get vaccinated as soon as they are eligible and as soon as vaccines are available.
“The best vaccine is the one that’s available and offered to you. We encourage people not to wait for your preferred vaccine and remember vaccines are only part of the preventive efforts.”
Dr Etienne empathised with those who display vaccine hesitancy but encouraged them to protect themselves by taking the shot.
“We should make a very important point that COVID-19 is easily transmitted and can lead to long term serious illness or death even for people who are young and healthy,” she said.
“Effective COVID-19 vaccines exist and are an important way to protect people from this disease. I understand that people may have questions about COVID vaccines or, of course, they might have seen things on the news that make them question whether they, or their family members, should get these vaccines.
“I understand that you want to ensure that you are making the best decision. I think that is commendable but let me take this opportunity to reassure you again that the vaccines will protect you against needlessly suffering from COVID or dying from COVID.”
She said citizens of the region know what it takes to keep COVID-19 numbers down. She said practising social distancing, wearing masks and avoiding gatherings in closed spaces are the key to reduce transmission, especially as dangerous variants circulate.
Comments
tribanon 3 years, 7 months ago
Hard to believe the CCP controlled WHO/PAHO is still recommending lockdowns when all the science now points to such measures not being the least bit helpful, and in fact more harmful, to a nation and its people, especially smaller nations.
carltonr61 3 years, 7 months ago
PAHO first lie in 2020 was that 10,000 Bahamians would die. Beaches closed with machin gun Covid Police traumatized this nation. Now they want to do it again.
tetelestai 3 years, 7 months ago
Can you provide the link where they said that please?
I tried to find it, but without success.
ohdrap4 3 years, 7 months ago
Flattening the curve makes the outbrak last longer.
Indian doctor on youtube says, if given licensing, India could produce 8 billion doses of vaccines "FOR EACH ITERATION OF THE PANDEMIC". Ie, you are doomed to be vaccinated every 6 months.
And, right now, the Seychelles, the most vaccinated country in the world, is in lockdown. (Bloomberg is mot fake news, or is it?). So, vaccination could not save their tourism.
This Etienne doctor needs to go away.
ThisIsOurs 3 years, 7 months ago
"now, the Seychelles, the most vaccinated country in the world, is in lockdown."
also a tourist destination. I'm going to bet a tourist brought in a variant and it's spreading like wildfire. No, i have no evidence... its a bet. like whats hapening here
John 3 years, 7 months ago
The vaccines are creating surges and spikes. They are a failed experiment. Many countries that did not do massive vaccinations are climbing out of the third more rapidly than countries that are mass vaccinating their people. The vaccines are causing unvaccinated persons who come in contact with vaccinated persons to test false positive. Then a few days they test negative.
ThisIsOurs 3 years, 7 months ago
"The vaccines are creating surges and spikes"
That can't be it or the full story. If you test false positive you're not really sick.
The issue these countries are having is with overwhelmed health care systems from persons who are actually sick. and sick enough to require hospitalization.
In March our total positives doubled. 300 cases in Jan, 300 in feb then 600 in March. We had not started any vaccination campaign. And while there should have been a concern for the exponential increase in total case count, the real alarm was that after a lull of 3 months, individuals started dying and requiring ICU care again.
What might be a fallout from the vaccinations is that community is being given the message that they don't need to be careful. When in actuality they can still get sick and they can still infect others. And whether that probability is dramatically decreased in the vaccinated population, you only need one outlier vaccinated superspreader, in a red shirt, travelling to all the out islands hugging up old people election campaigning, to start a massive fire.
The most scary thing about this entire episode (since Dr Sands was fired) has been the efforts by Dr Minnis to tell us everything is fine let the tourists come in and let them be as free as possible. The latest being to junkanooers Junkanooers are not word parsers. they hear they special and can congregate in the shacks. It appears he would sacrifice this entire population to win an election
John 3 years, 7 months ago
Our situation is completely different. Many of our cases can be directly linked to recent travel or coming into contact with someone who is visiting the country. And then that leads to community spread or work-related spread. And even though the number of cases here is spreading exponentially (tripled in a matter of weeks), the fortunate thing is persons getting seriously ill or dying from Covid-19 did not increase by the same variance. This third wave is rapidly moving and many countries went through it in a matter BPF weeks. So it should be mostly gone from this country by next month. Especially if people continue to follow the emergency protocols and ignore, as much of possible, Minnis plot to not test persons who have the vaccines ( very irresponsible for a medical doctor , especially since the science does not support a person being vaccinated not being able to contract or spread the virus). The fact is many people have developed a resistance to Covid-19 and are not getting seriously ill .But the mass gatherings, like the recent party attended by over 300 people are most counterproductive when it comes to battling the virus.
ThisIsOurs 3 years, 7 months ago
huh? but you just said the rise was related to vaccinations. I showed with data the exponential spread and deaths started before the vaccinations before the Easter holiday, and was not evident over the christmas holiday when people were congregating at infamous arawak cay. The data says something happened beside vaccinations and beside bad behaviour. What did happen in March? Our tourist numbers went up, exponentially. DAguilar says they doubled.
I don't know of a rate that relates the number of persons infected to those who are seriously ill. (maybe there is) What I do know is there is a number associated with our capacity to handle seriously ill patients, and right now there's nothing "fortunate" about it. According to Dr Sands every COVID facility is almost at maximum capacity. Nahajha Black spoke of her COVID infected relative needing oxygen being treated on the "porch" as the person described it at PMH.
ThisIsOurs 3 years, 7 months ago
What people have to remember is if you're at the point when things seem out of control, the catalyst occurred months earlier while noone was paying attention. This disease spreads exponentially. It was happening while Renward Wells Dr Minnis and Jeff Lloyd were saying "we've done a great job conquering the virus; what 3rd wave; open the junkanoo shacks"
JokeyJack 3 years, 7 months ago
The tools mentioned by PAHO are not "the only tools" available. They are the only tools that doctors are allowed to recommend.
Doctors are on a more serious lockdown than we are. Im certain that the plan to initially vaccinate doctors and nursee first was meant to kill them off so we had nobody to guide us. Luckily, doctors are smart and took the illegal medicines to save themselves.
Fauci thinks he is the only doctor in the world.
John 3 years, 7 months ago
India’s massive spread originated from mass gatherings. There was a lot of political activity recently that drew large crowds and national celebrations that drew even larger crowds. And even as persons become ill with the virus, according to news footage, they are not being isolated and quarantined, but being surrounded by family and friends. And many are flocking or being to already overwhelmed medical facilities. The government could have done more to prevent this by setting up isolated care facilities for Covid patients and urging family and friends to have as least contact with the patients as possible.
John 3 years, 7 months ago
On the other hand, the US cases are plunging rapidly. They are in fact at their lowest level since June 2020. And the country is reopening almost fully. People are planning summer vacations and travel. Hopefully it is not premature.
MrsQ 3 years, 7 months ago
The examples you cite of India and the U.S. directly contradict your theory that vaccines are causing the rise in infection rates. 33% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated versus 2.3% of Indian's population. As others have pointed out, vaccinated people still need to follow basic COVID precautions so as not to potentially spread the disease to others, but the statistics show that vaccines are having a positive impact on slowing the spread of the virus: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202…
John 3 years, 7 months ago
And what scientific foundation can you base that conclusion on? The vaccines are placebos. They prevent nothing. They suppress Corona symptoms. They give false sense of security. To some the idea of b
MrsQ 3 years, 7 months ago
By suppressing symptoms which release COVID droplets into the air, vaccines reduce transmission. That's just common sense. And again, your theory that vaccines increase COVID cases is destroyed by your U.S. example. If vaccines are ineffective "placebos" which cause people to act more recklessly and spread the disease, then the U.S.'s COVID infection numbers would be skyrocketing and India's would be extremely low. Instead, the opposite is true.
John 3 years, 7 months ago
I have always maintained that Covid-19 virus will be mostly gone be June and almost fully gone by summer. The CDC is now saying their data suggests that the virus is rapidly disappearing across the US and life can return to almost full normalcy by Independence Day (July 4th). Well that is if that country does not act prematurely and throw caution to the wind and discard safety protocols too soon. Remember it was only first because Donald Trump refused to acknowledge the virus as a pandemic, then refused to implement safety protocols, including the wearing of masks, social distancing and restrictions on large gatherings, especially that allowed the virus to rage across the US and for so long. As soon as Joe Biden came to office and required mandatory wearing of masks in all government buildings, the numbers started to fall. Despite this, some will try credit the vaccines as bringing an end to the pandemic. In fact Joe Biden is seeking to have the record breaking profits company, Pfizer’s vaccine fully approved and not just approved for emergency. This will allow Pfizer and the US to distribute the vaccine to other countries and private companies will then be able to purchase the vaccine for distribution. And Americans who were skeptical because of the vaccine ‘emergency status’ may now be convinced to take the vaccine. In any event, it all means the company will continue to reap billions in profits. And Pfizer is convinced that a third booster shot will be needed as early as October or early next year by all who have taken the first two jabs. Most people are hoping Covid-19 will be long gone by October and definitely history by next year, as early as January 1st.
DWW 3 years, 7 months ago
everyone broke, govt broke. only the politicians, doctors and nurses are being well paid. lets do what needs to be done and get back to work, get the economy functioning.
carltonr61 3 years, 7 months ago
https://sputniknews.com/uk/202105071082…
Britain warning those under 40 not to take AZ. Guess our Covid jail masters will scream propaganda, once the science rubberbands away from their control over us. This hijacking of the global travel industry has failed. The vaccine profiteers are in free fall confusion as Seychelles has proven that whole nation of workers vaccinated by AZ has led to massive massive spread.
tribanon 3 years, 7 months ago
The ruthlessly evil and sinister Xi Jinping has the ability to send at any time dozens of super spreaders of multiple variants of the Wuhan Virus to just about anywhere in any country he wants to for the purpose of causing severe political, social and economic disruption and upheaval in order to further his stated objective of absolute worldwide domination by Communist China. And there isn't a thing even the US can do to stop what has been put in play the all around the world by the Xi Jinping led CCP regime. Now just let that thought sink in for a moment.
tribanon 3 years, 7 months ago
At any time Xi Jinping can change which new vaccines we will need and when we will need them in his apparent war aimed at achieving total population control through on-going vaccine dependence.
Xi successfully manipulated and duped freaks like Bill Gates and Fauci, who for the past decade or so have been engaged in evil 'gain-of-function' virology research with greedy profiteering motives in mind, into turning over the secrets of how carefully engineered gain-of-function pathogens could be weaponized and used for waves of unending pandemics carefully targeted at certain segments of the global population.
Many now believe Xi and the military leadership of the CCP are mentally unhinged and prepared to adopt a virus-scorched earth policy if that's what it will take for Communist China to gain worldwide dominance and supremacy. Truly frightening, and God forbid the labelled conspiracy theorists have it right this time.
carltonr61 3 years, 7 months ago
https://www.rt.com/uk/523182-ema-astraz…
More AZ problems.
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