 we thank you for traveling mercy. Oh God you said in all things we ought to give thanks. For you are God and there is none else like you. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ that your holy spirit will take full charge of this meeting today. Grant wisdom to the head table. We pray dear God that that would direct our deliberations in every way for the benefit and blessing of this nation. We also praise you dear Father for the work that has been done for all the different sectors. We know dear Lord that there is much panic on the ground and rightly so. But help us dear God to always remember that in times of pestilences and destruction you are still God. For your word says we shall not be afraid of the terrible night nor of the hour dear God that flyeth by day. Pestilences and destruction that wasted at noon day. Your word still says that thousands shall fall at thy side and ten thousand at their right hand but none shall come night. These are your words and we claim it by faith today. And may dear God our city be a wonderful and successful one as we go forward. Bless this nation. Take care of each one of us we pray and we thank you. Thank you Prime Minister and all the members of the head table, the leader of the opposition, Minister Felix, all the ministers of the cabinet, officials of the ministries of health, finance and all the permanent secretaries and heads of department. Leaders and managers of the various sectors in the society, stakeholders, ladies and gentlemen, I want to welcome and thank everyone for being here this morning. By way of housekeeping arrangements just to let you know that the first part of this meeting is being live streamed. When we get into the business session that's going to be a closed session but from the statements that will be made by the leader of the opposition, the prime minister and the update provided by the chief medical officer, all of these will be live streamed for the benefit of the nation and for the information of our people. I thank you for being here and for responding in short time to this very important meeting part of the consultative process that the prime minister has initiated from over the weekend. First with the emergency meeting of the cabinet of ministers which took place on Saturday evening, yesterday continued dialogue with various key sector stakeholders and today this NEMAC extended attendance meeting so that the nation can be briefed on where we are as a nation in respect to our response, defense and preparation for COVID-19. At this time I would like to invite the honourable Philip J. Peer, leader of the opposition to do some brief remarks. Thank you very much cabinet secretary, honourable prime minister and a member to the head table. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. First of all, let me inform you that our party stands ready to support all meaningful efforts to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus in St. Lucia. We will do whatever is in our power, mobilize all our networks to ensure that this deadly disease does not spread and does not get uncontrollable in our country. We recommend that the government establish a COVID special task force. We should include all government agencies, the opposition, the civil society, churches, health and professional bodies. The chief medical officer must be fully empowered and resource to take all the decisions that are necessary. I want to take this opportunity to commend all the medical personnel, all the nurses, the doctors and everyone who is on the frontline of that fight because they put themselves and their lives and their families at risk every day. I think they must be commended and appreciated and when the time comes they should be honoured. We recommend and notice that that has happened that additional travel advisories be applied on persons with a travel history from the United Kingdom, the United States and other European countries. These measures should be monitored but should be for a 14-day period in the first instance but should continue to be monitored. Nationals returning from these islands or these countries should also be monitored because we never know but in that case we have to be very sensitive because these are these are our people who are returning so we have to be very sensitive as far as that's concerned. We need to establish livable and if we can comfortable areas for quarantine in that the whole business of quarantine must be a very very traumatic experience. I mean we need to have comfortable surroundings for the quarantine of both nationals if necessary and visitors. We should close our borders to all cruise ships and ensure that there is screening at all ports of entry that may include closing all ports of entry for yachts and for yachts and pleasure boats. The ability to do testing is crucial and widespread testing is vital but costly. We advise that the government of Taiwan could be contacted to assist in our testing to assist in fact to assist in the approach to advise us on the approach because Taiwan seemed to have controlled that disease very well so we could contact the government of Taiwan through our agencies here to ensure that they teach us or they advise us or they even help us as to how they manage to control that illness. We are also saying that there should be good practice like social distancing which is not happening here today and I hope the next time we are in gatherings and our party has taken that position that if we have gatherings we ensure that we take these measures so advise that the next time you meet you should ensure that you have a few feet from each other. Then we we know that the Tsar's festival has been abandoned or has been postponed so we have the issue of carnival and issue of carnival I know is a vaccine issue but I think we should we should discuss it with all the bands with everybody involved and decide. I don't know whether it's it's appropriate time now but at least we should be we should be speaking about it talking to those involved so we can take in short time a decision regarding carnival in in July. We may have to close the country and closing the country is a very emotionally taxing situation because people are basically social beings and we must take that very seriously. You can imagine telling some guys they cannot go to play dominoes or they can't visit their friends that is very tasking it's and it's a social situation that we have to look at because it's it's not as easy as to say all right we've closed the country and you stay home it's very difficult very difficult particularly for those who haven't got the luxuries and the pleasures that some of us have. We have to be very careful in terms of closing the country as it regards social interaction it might lead to frustration it might lead to a lot of pain and sufferings and unintended emotional circumstances. We think that the government should be open and have constant communication with the people. The hotline should be open and communication in both English and Patois that we should speak to people and I know it's not it's not necessary for us to create panic but we must be truthful and tell people exactly what's happening and how it's happening not panic but truth. We know that our economy will take a massive blow because our main income tourism will be affected. I suggest that the government looks into using the pool of money that we have available to us and that is the airport departure tax. That money should be used to stimulate the economy to to assist workers who will inevitably lose their jobs to assist taxi drivers who will lose their income and to assist all everyone who lives directly or owns a living directly from that industry. I know it's a hard decision but as I said before there can be no economy if you don't have people so we need people to make an economy work. I think government should try to use that pool of money that they have to create a stimulus for the economy and at least to allow people to live if not a comfortable life but a decent life those of of us who will be losing our jobs or those of them who will be losing their jobs. It's a decision that we should take or we should look at it because we can't continue if our industry is closed the economy people have to at least be able to eat be able to live at least. We also should look at the what role the national insurance corporation can play in terms of sick benefits we have to look into that and see how we can use the NIC within the law how we can use the NIC funds to assist our people. As I insist it's about it's about people and our party will support government parliament if it comes to changing existing rules or legislation to support these kind of initiatives. I want to tell you my brothers and my sisters that this is a very trying time it's a very trying time for all of us it's not a time for political upmanship our party will ensure that the people come first that the government will get the necessary support when it comes to creating a better living a better living a better way of life for the people of our country. It's a hard time it's not I don't think anyone in this room ever thought that we will ever get to to that situation but I can assure you it's something we can overcome we as the people are resilient we can overcome it we need to work together we need to stop the political posturing and we need to stop the ideas of one being better than the other we have to stop we have to forget what's happening next year and work for the benefit of the people of this country because in finalizes we may have no next year if things continue unabated I thank you very much and my party stands within process thank you thank you very much honorable filipier sorry this time I invite prime minister and of course also chairman of nimac to address this meeting and to outline what some of government's intervention and we thought of course this meeting is under the chairmanship of the prime minister following prime minister's address or briefing we will then invite the chief medical officer to provide the meeting with an update both in terms of where we are um regional nationally regionally and internationally as well as st lucha's own preparedness plans by way of update what's happening following the prime minister's remarks the cmo will do this presentation so thank you very much mr capsa first of all welcome to everyone this morning I'm very happy that you all could be here let me also thank the leader of the opposition for his comments and certainly the contribution that he's made we've noted it some of the things as he's indicated have already been implemented so if I can just recap in terms of understanding the process that we have adopted um so we react to um kappa as our prime entity in terms of determining recall for this health crisis kappa develops its policy from paho and paho develop its its policy from the who kappa has used um a rating system of the threat to our region so when this crisis broke out in january it was not considered to be a high threat because it was in china and it was through kappa's recommendation that the caution of travel from china was adopted it then grew in early part of february in which we then started to add additional destinations so south korea and japan in particular the threat to our region was elevated in early march and that was really because of the introduction of an uh of an outbreak in idly and that we saw that it was starting to spread to europe all of a sudden simply because of the cruise industry um and other entities because we don't get a lot of italian tourists here but some of the other islands do get a lot of italians and so therefore that's why the alert level was raised as it grew in the rest of europe and then also grew into the uk the alert level was raised again and so it was when we raised the the alert level i think cma was in march 5th that we decided to convene nimac and we felt that nimac was the appropriate vehicle to start addressing this problem and i think the last time that we met i described the fact that there's a lot of similarities between what we're confronting in a hurricane and while the the essence of the natural disaster is different but in terms of the organization that we have here so i want to say to the leader of the opposition that the committee that he's recommended actually exists and it's nimac so all of the entities that he's indicated and recommended actually are here including the the the opposition so today's meeting is really now to kick this into another level because now we have seen that we're getting close to some of the highest alert levels that we can get we now know that canada and united states of america and certainly even islands in close proximity to us that there's outbreaks there and certainly the trends suggest that the number of cases is going to continue to be able to grow the cmo will do a presentation so i certainly don't want to to take away anything from her presentation but suffice it to say or suffice to say that the battle here or and some people have described it as being a war is about saving lives so a respiratory element by itself of one individual is something that's very curable pneumonia is not new to us and the ability of people surviving no pneumonia is actually pretty good and given the technology that we have what this outbreak has caused is the possibility that the number of cases that we're going to have is going to overwhelm the capacity of any country in the world to deal with it so the number of deaths that you're hearing reported around the world sadly is being caused by people not being able to get treatment and it's not from a humanitarian will of not wanting to provide treatment is physically being able to cater to that number of people at the same time and so statistically if we're to go by the statistics that are coming out of this very new virus and so they're not a hundred percent accurate but they're the numbers that we have to use in guiding our policy the suggestion is is that one out of every five people are going to be affected and if i use those numbers specifically to the united states of america because sometimes we like to use developing countries in order to highlight the problem so i want to use a country that probably spends more money on health care than any other country in the world on a per capita basis so we know that one out of twenty one of five people are going to be affected statistically of the twenty percent of the people that are going to be affected eighty percent of those people are not going to need hospitalization but sadly as we've seen in martinique the panic and the fear causes many of those people who are simply going to have a cold and a flu to want to go to the hospital and so therefore it overwhelms the capacity of the hospital the twenty percent of those people now are more than likely going to require hospitalization and of that twenty percent ten percent of those people are going to need to be treated for pneumonia so when you work out the us population of three hundred and forty million people and you work backwards that one point four million people are more than likely going to develop pneumonia in america and there's only sixty thousand respirators available so from a mathematical perspective what you see the world now reacting to is to what we call flatten the curve to stop this peak of occurring that all of a sudden the eighty percent of the people that are going to be affected are all being affected within a window of one month and the people who are going to develop pneumonia are also being impacted within that same month and therefore you're overwhelmed and as a result of that many people that need to get onto a respirator will not be able to get onto a respirator and that's where the number of deaths start occurring does it mean that we can prevent anyone from dying the answer is no because in every country there are people citizens that have low immune systems whether it's because they're diabetic whether they have heart conditions or other elements that lower their immune system and therefore that when they develop pneumonia as they would in any other period of time without corona they become very vulnerable and the ability of them to be able to live depends on the amount of care that they can get but even with the technology we have today there is no guarantee a person who has pneumonia and also has preconditions that they're also going to live so this is the crisis and because now places like canada and united states in particular and some of the european countries are discovering this late that you're now seeing this reaction globally the reaction globally is going to have the effect of literally shutting down the global economy so we've already seen that the cruise industry has announced that as of next week they're not going to have any ships going for 30 days some cruise ships have said 60 days some cruise ships have said 90 days disney world and disney land i just heard this morning that many of the hotels in los vegas are also closing down we're seeing in new york city not only our kids being told not to go to school universities are shutting down but businesses are being told to have their workers remote to work remotely and this is going to have a severe impact on the economy and certainly the results of that are being felt and being shown on the stock market so we've gone from 29 000 i believe we're hovering anywhere between 20 and 22 000 for the last three days so the global economic fallout is significant most of the countries the developed countries have been attempting to use the savings rate the fed rate to stimulate business the united states has unprecedentedly dropped its lending rate to 0.25 of one percent so in literally in essence what they're saying is banks can borrow money from the fed for free and also we've seen that the fed in the u.s is purchasing treasury bills so when you see that in layman's term what that means is that they're pumping billions of dollars into the economy to be able to attempt to stimulate and regain confidence in the global economy but unfortunately the markets and businesses are not reacting to that because the evidence on the ground is is that the companies are contracting and so the decisions to shut down their economies has a delayed impact on us i want to say that it's been a very difficult in some ways situation to manage so my government has been confronted with too risk the risk of health and safety for the country which i have to say to you is very very important to us as well as the economic risk of fallout so we got some numbers yesterday which 13500 solutions are employed directly into the hotels and restaurants and the likelihood is if we continue to see the shutdowns that we're seeing is that industry or that sector is going to be very hard hit and certainly policies of closing down your borders have a direct impact on that sector and i think that sometimes people and i know they don't mean it um are not understanding the dependence that we have on that industry i can say to you that if we don't have tourist traveling into san lucha the ability for us to maintain or even have the number of flights we have coming into our country is impossible so i see people using two things in one sentence which explains the contradiction that i want you to shut down the country but i want you to make sure that solutions can come home in the same sentence those are conflicting i also want to remind us that there is still need to be able to interact with the rest of the world if we take on simple things like healthcare we're not self-sufficient in healthcare and there are occasions more than we like to admit in which solutions have to travel abroad to be able to get critical care and so therefore a martinique as an example plays a very important role in providing that service and so while we have put a a a caution meaning that anybody who comes from mainland france as of tomorrow will be quarantined for two weeks in san lucha we've restrained on applying that to martinique and that we are developing a protocol with martinique and guadalupe both san lucha and dominica in particular as to how we're going to manage that interaction because we cannot shut down entirely from martinique we still have to leave it open that if in fact we have critical cases despite the health crisis taking place in martinique we have to leave that window of opportunity available but i agree with the leader of the opposition and he and i had an opportunity to discuss this i think it was on on on thursday or friday on on wednesday thursday that stopping private boats from coming across the the channel is the first step and so that we will be shutting down rodney bay and also shutting down sufrere and that will be allowing martinique insolutions to traverse back and forth between martinique and san lucha by either flying or by using the fast ferry and what this does it allows us to take very limited resources because the the marine police have had to now man and guard a very wide space to narrow where the the traffic is going to come in but more importantly we have a very active black market or unofficial market between martinique and san lucha and sometimes they believe and probably rightfully so that they are above the law and certainly now by restricting or eliminating small boats any small boat that we see in the channel we know who they are and it's going to make it easier for the marine police and the police officials in general to be able to protect our border so i just want to say that this this decision that some solutions immediately come to that we must shut down our borders is sometimes easier said than actually achieved but i can assure all solutions that in the last six weeks that when it has come to make a decision between commerce and the safety of the people of this country and this has been led primarily by our chief medical officer we have always cited on the health and the safety of our country always and not always to the satisfaction of some of the businesses that we have to interact with and in some instances san lucha has actually been penalized because of that but i want to say to you publicly that we have no regrets and if we had to make the same decision again we would make the same decision again and we'll deal with the fallout of some of those decisions hopefully after the corona crisis is over so the purpose of neemak which will now meet on a more regular basis is to make sure that the protocols that are coming from the cmo and soon to be operationalized national command center so the national command center will actually be an executing entity that will be making sure some of the locations and facilities we're putting in are actually executed because there's no way that we can continue with just a ministry of health by themselves so i need to provide the physical support of logistic type people and crisis management people to be part of that command center in terms of executing and what are those facilities we have to start anticipating and think of the worst and the worst case is that in the upcoming weeks there there will be a outbreak from a community what that means is that the current cases we have of corona are imported they were two british citizens on different occasions who arrived there and when they arrived they already had corona what we need to be concerned about is the spread of that so when the virus starts spreading here locally and therefore whether we have tourists or not that it's going to grow this is our concern and i know that the cmo um and her team have been very cognizant of some of the problems that we have small households a lot of people in the household so if one person is has symptoms the ability of that person to isolate themselves sufficiently in their home is going to be impossible and therefore the state must provide facilities in which once you have the symptoms and you've been tested positive that there's somewhere that you can go for the two-week period in order to make sure that you're not helping spread the virus more aggressively and there's going to be a huge communication challenge and there's a tremendous amount of honesty and reality that people have to do so denying that you have corona is not going to help the situation and certainly you you're not doing anyone any justice and you're certainly not helping the situation by pretending that you can overcome this by yourself and that you're going to stay in your household and particularly if your household has elderly people in it or people who have diabetes even worse yet that you should not be staying in the house the other thing is is that we know that as we said the vast majority of the people just need to go somewhere and be isolated the symptoms that they're going to have are going to be cold and flu and so it's fluids and just making sure that they're being taken care of 20 percent though of the people which is about seven thousand people are going to need hospitalization and so we are actually in the process of working with the hotel sector to get one of or two hotels in which we can use that as a holding bay for people who have corona and that we could monitor them i think they're also in the process of looking at some schools at some schools as well we are also in the process of moving into ok u as i indicated at our last meeting that we have no choice but to push up the timetable in moving into ok u and with the idea of using victoria hospital as a respiratory hospital meaning that the cases that need hospitalization that that would take place at victoria and so therefore i know that the cmo and her team as well as the private medical and the what's called the medical and dental association have been meeting over the weekend in confirming that we can we can make those moves and we're still working and hoping that we can get some form of technical support because the martin eacons were supposed to be coming over to help us but obviously they're in crisis and because of the travel conditions globally to get people from anywhere else part of the world is becoming more and more complicated as we speak but we're working through that but we do have a plan b locally in order to make that transition happen so over the next week next week and 10 days the goal is to be able to prepare this country physically in order to be able to handle any increase in cases that we're going to have the cmo will also speak to you about three stages stage one was to prevent the corona from coming in we've now passed that because we have two corona cases and that we're moving to stage two but i would say to you that given where the world is and everything that's taken place that we're really going to be merging stage two and stage three together we have to and we have no choice but to do everything that we possibly can to make sure that we're establishing the protocols and the behavior to try to restrict the growth of this virus and some people have used it that we have to go to war with the virus i'm saying to you that we need to act with a sense of urgency and this is why my government has chosen to allow the cmo and her team to take the lead and that we want to make sure exactly what the leader of the opposition has indicated that politics plays no part in what we're doing but it's important that all of us protect and uphold the word of the cmo and that we cannot leave this room and automatically start second west guessing what is coming out of the cmo i assure you that my government is playing no politics my government's role is to listen to the cmo supported by her team and to ensure the resources that she requires and her team require that we make it as available and as quickly as possible so the director of finance and i literally are standing by on a daily basis to be able to provide that later today that we will be having a meeting with the imf we had two preparatory meetings yesterday one with the oecs early in the morning a second one with a caracom in the afternoon in order to figure out what kind of resources can be made available immediately to our countries in order to be able to help us finance through this situation we are in uncharted waters this is worse than the worst hurricane this is worse than the recession this is worse than 9 11 and every single ceo and leader of the world has readily admitted that and so what is important is that we have cash available exactly what the leader of the opposition indicated to make sure that we're able to make sure that people are getting salaries and that there's still money in circulation i want to say to all solutions that we all have a very important part to be able to play right now the war is to make sure the virus doesn't spread and so we are depending on all of you to change those behaviors that a word that needs to become commonplace is rationing not hearing that word it's almost like people are expecting that exactly what their lifestyle was yesterday is what that lifestyle needs to be over the next couple of months that is not realistic and if in fact we are going to be our brothers keepers it means that we all have to share so this idea of people rushing to the grocery stores to go and buy out stuff that mechanisms will be put in place in order to make sure that we have adequate supplies and that but there has to be rationing people lining up today to go and buy wheat and sugar and flour the government has a significant amount of inventory there's no need to go and panic but in order to stretch out those resources because we have no idea how long this is going to last we have no idea what the impact on the food chain is going to be in the upcoming months we must prepare ourselves for the worst and therefore we must start changing our behavior and our expectations on what we're supposed to be doing and we will make more pronouncements as information becomes available to us as to how we're going to be able to move forward but I can assure you that the government is thinking longer term and is making sure that the necessary adjustments that we have to put in place are being made and this is again something that we're working collectively with the OECS and CARICOM on in terms of making sure that we have the necessary supplies to be able to move forward my government will also make pronouncements with regards to the economic stimulus or package that we're going to be offering the economy so in saying that one of the things I would like to recommend is that we put together a working committee yesterday we met with civil society and many of the private sector associations as I said that NEMAC will be the implementing agency and be the frontline of our battle and that will be ably supported by the command a national command center group which will actually be dealing with it from a health care perspective NEMAC will be dealing with from a broader economic from a logistics perspective so the working committee I would like to recommend will have representatives from the unions from the Chamber of Commerce and included in the Chamber of Commerce would be the manufacturing association the agriculture farmers and the bar association the medical and dental association tourism which will include SLHTA and the tourism authority and then critical ministries the ministry of of finance being one of the more important ones and the intention is for this working committee to be chaired by the three ministers who are here and also included the minister of health so these the four of us will be automatically on this committee and this committee will meet on a weekly basis sorry did I not mention the opposition will also be part of this committee and that is to review the economic side of this story and to make sure that everybody is aware of what we're doing and that as much as possible we're taking everything into consideration in how we can resolve this issue so the next four to six months there is going to be an economic fallout there's no way of preventing that from happening that's beyond our control what we need to do is to put ourselves in a position in which we can be each other's brother's keeper and that we make sure that the businesses are able to stay afloat and that when the global economy returns that we're in a position to be able to take advantage of it as much as possible but we have to recognize that there's going to be a change in our daily habits and there's going to be a change in the economic environment we're currently accustomed to right the government's revenue is going to significantly fall there's going to be a tremendous amount of demands and I'm sitting here saying to you that we are calm but we understand the urgency of the situation so do not misinterpret our demeanor we are staying calm in order that we can stay focused on the job at hand but we all recognize the urgency in which we must make decisions and always in the interest of every single solution so again I want to end my presentation how I began it it's very important that that all of us recognize that despite the differences that we have as two political parties there is no politics in this we all need to come together in order to be able to deal with this and my government will make sure that the opposition is treated with respect and that they have access to all the information and participate in all of the decisions that we're going to be taking and I'm hoping that the rest of the country will take a cue from what we're doing as politicians and also start working together and that is also the greatest enemy is the misinformation and the fake news that's happening that's creating unnecessary panic and panamonia in our country and certainly um i'm hopefully the church will join me in saying this the discriminatory language that's being used against particular ethnicities in our country needs to stop corona does not discriminate whether you're rich poor asian black it doesn't matter you're all susceptible to it and so we need to stop that we need to come together as a country godfaring country and work together so at this point I just want to again thank the minister of health also thank the um the cmo all of them and her team their teams have been working tirelessly in terms of making sure that they uh advise cabinet and making the best decisions and certainly we have never on once ever occasion told them to take political considerations in their decisions these are always decisions that are not filtered and that are to the best interest of the public at large taking to consideration the resources we have the reality on the ground and the crisis that we're we're currently dealing with so again I want to thank the leader of the opposition I want to thank all of you for being here we're going to be meeting and seeing each other a lot over the next couple of weeks and how well we execute each of our roles is going to determine how successful we are in making sure that when the light of the tunnel starts showing again that we're in and we're all holding hands together and we're all here so again I thank you Prime Minister Hon. Alan Shasne leader of the opposition Hon. Philip J Pierre members of the head table of the ministers permanent secretaries heads of departments and organizations good morning to all I think the tone has been set very well by both our Hon. Prime Minister Alan Shasne and Hon. Philip Pierre on the importance of why we are here today coronavirus is going to affect every single one of us in one way or another and the importance of planning and preparation is most important the extent of the impact that it affects us the tone has been set very well in terms of ensuring that every single organization is responsible and necessary to work with us to reduce the impact that we are seeing on other countries I also want to thank Hon. Shasne for elevating the risk from very early even before we had cases to the level of NIMAC to ensure that every single organization is on board and has a part to play as we indicated in the first meeting that we had of NIMAC where we presented our preparation plans because we were still in preparation mode where COFA had elevated the risk to moderate to higher that level we indicated and we were very open with the plans of the country to date we indicated what was in place we also showed the gap it was an extremely important meeting because even at that meeting some of the important gaps were highlighted by members of the clergy who we almost left out of such an important the psychosocial support that was needed so today I will continue as to indicate where we are now with the plans also take the opportunity to highlight our in-country transmission plan and also to update you on some of the gaps that I indicated in our first meeting as I as I expressed in our first meeting every single sector needs to be on board with us if we are to have a plan that will reduce the impact of COVID-19 so as always the Ministry of Health will remain open to all of the suggestions I also want to recognize the national health security meeting which is chaired by the cabinet secretary which was activated very early in January this meeting has facilitated the cooperation of other ministries and agencies and have really supported the Ministry of Health in some of the decisions that we need to make to ensure that it happens in a very timely manner and I have to thank all of the members of that team for their support in ensuring that even the management of our suspect cases and cases to date has been able to happen in a more efficient manner so without further ado I will this morning I will give you the epidemic update from an international perspective also give you a regional update as to the cases that we note in the region I will summarize our first and second COVID-19 cases I will give you an idea of the level of risk that we anticipate as we now have two imported cases into St. Lucia and I will give an idea of our country response I have given the we explained quite extensively in the first presentation the preparation so I will continue on on our in-country preparation plans and highlight to you where we are and where we are working towards as of March 15th the World Health Organization reported a total of 153,517 confirmed cases globally 81,000 confirmed cases in China 72,000 confirmed cases have been reported outside of China and we have a total of 143 countries affected now there been a total of 5,735 deaths to date in the regional point of view these are the different countries and these are the number of cases that they have reported so we range from 10 cases reported in Martinique to one case in some of the islands as you can see as we explained I will not go into the details of the disease again but for us at the Ministry of Health for us to anticipate and plan COVID-19 is one of the diseases that affects persons who are elderly or with chronic diseases so for us to estimate the possible impact if it comes we had to look at our disease burden and just giving you an idea of the prevalence of some of the main conditions will help you to see the level of risk and it would also help you to see our at-risk population that a big part of the plan has to include their protection also to give you an idea of the age and sex distribution of our population from data from 2017 you could see the 50 to 64 age group is 16.9 percent and over 65 9.5 percent so we have an aging population this disease thankfully has spared the young person so far in all of the countries that it has affected the children the babies have been coming out quite well but it is the elderly persons or persons with chronic conditions so this is one of the groups that we have to work closely with and ensure we can protect them to reduce the number of persons we have admissions and also require intensive care. Our first confirmed case was a 63-year-old female from the UK with a past history of asthma and hypertension she traveled through Grenada then arrived in St. Lucia on the 7th of March she developed more severe symptoms on the 8th she was transferred to our isolation facility for testing on that day and we received we received the results on the 13th of March our second case a 53-year-old male a UK citizen with a history of travel from France he arrived on the 11th of March and he entered our system on the 13th he's placed in isolation from March 13th and tested we received the results on Saturday evening and I would like to indicate that both of the patients are stable and doing well in our isolation unit this is to give you an idea of the impact that one case could have on us one important case coming in and the extent of the contact tracing that we have had to do for those patients for the second patient contact tracing is still ongoing because we have our staff have been in the communities and the areas where those persons were in an attempt to get every we were able to get their itineraries as to everywhere they went and everyone that they had interacted with and to ensure that those persons are put in quarantine and are being monitored and this is being done to reduce the effect and the possibility of in-country transmission in our first meeting we were able to indicate what our country capacity for beds for admissions and also for ICU we note that about five percent of persons who get um COVID-19 develop critical disease and about half of them need ventilator care so I will indicate a little lower down where we are at in terms of assisting in this gap for for admission and for critical care cases our present capacity for isolation and quarantine home quarantine we do for persons who have a travel history to an area of interest in the last 14 days and if those persons have the capacity for home quarantine that is having a room and a bathroom which is separate from the rest of the house and from those persons we are able to monitor monitor them twice a day for signs and symptoms such as fever or respiratory signs and symptoms some persons do not have that capacity we have an arrangement with a guest house in the north which gives us the capacity for of 10 rooms and in the early phases this has proved um sufficient we have been using this for our persons who've been quarantined later on the details of our collaboration with a hotel in the north which gives us a capacity of 124 beds and this is part of the in-country transmission plan I want to make it very clear at this point that I will be speaking a lot of in-country transmission although we do not have evidence of in-country transmission as yet however we have two confirmed cases and we are doing contact tracing so the next 14 days are extremely critical to us in terms of picking up persons who were exposed to those persons so we have to from now ensure we have the capacity to isolate to treat and to keep anyone who develop signs and symptoms and the capacity of this um hotel it has five different blocks so it will give us the capacity for persons who need quarantine only there's persons who have the trouble history with no signs and symptoms for persons who test positive for the disease and have mild illness so they have mild disease meaning they can spread it but so we would not want them out in the community in their home so we'd be able to keep them there and also persons who are in the transitionary stage where they fit a suspect case but we do not have the results as yet so it will give us that capacity when we surpass our 10-room capacity that we are using right now within the hospital our isolation unit has a capacity of 15 beds that is for persons who are positive for COVID-19 we've had a total of 43 persons under quarantine we presently have 32 now I'm saying 32 as per this morning as our contact tracing is still going on by this afternoon our teams were still on the ground they will report the extra cases that were placed under quarantine um under guest house quarantine we have two persons and the number of persons who the total of number of persons who have been isolated have been 10 we presently have 16 isolation two who are positive and four who fit the condition of suspect cases we are waiting test results from the Caribbean public health agency to know their status when do we start to implement aggressive containment and mitigation measures this is one of the things that we have been discussing um profusely looking at the measures that other countries have taken and the results that they have gotten when you compare the results that came out of two countries that is South Korea China we're not talking about uber city that actually had the outbreak when we compare this to other countries such as Italy and Iran those countries took very aggressive early containment mitigation measures and we can we we look at the mortality rate that they noted it is extremely important that we act and we act very early to reduce a possible impact to reduce the number of persons we get in severe cases and this graph explains it very nicely in countries that are not well prepared and have issues with containment the problem with COVID-19 we get a lot of cases within a very short period and that's the red graph so what happens is the the dotted line shows the healthcare system capacity if we have a lot of cases within a very short period of time we overwhelm our health system so there are people if it were possible for them to get proper healthcare they may have survived or done better so it is important for us to do all that is necessary very early so that we get the second graph where although we may get cases we see cases in the community but we are able to manage them at different levels so our healthcare plan for in-country transmission is geared at just to ensure we can monitor the cases within the community and that we have a capacity to manage cases when needed and the three stages to focus on for containment and mitigation I will explain these three stages to you stage one is where we have no cases or imported cases only the the most important factor here is source control so border control reducing transmission as we did our first travel restriction was early February as we monitored the WHO numbers we looked at the CDC travel advisories we also looked to see how the countries were managing we extended that list again to include more countries which were high risk and as we looked at the latest numbers yesterday we did a further extension to include some of the other countries that are also high risk in terms of the universal temperature monitoring them the extensive health education campaign that we have also put and to ensure that everybody knows what to do even before um COVID-19 comes to us so a lot of what we did under stage one I explained in detail during the first meeting so I will not be going through it now stage two is when we get increasing cases and the start of community spread to date we do not have any evidence of community spread our data through EPI has not shown any increases in in flu cases to indicate we are having community spread and we have not had um any of the contacts of our cases test positive for COVID-19 to date but every day is a new day every day we are monitoring our persons in quarantine but to date we do not have any evidence of community spread based on these two cases so during this phase what we need to do is to slow down the increase in cases and to flatten the curve that I showed earlier so the aggressive public education is what we recommend testing quarantine and isolation I want to speak about testing at the earlier meetings one of the gaps I brought up to to you and to our different stakeholders was our gap in testing the Caribbean public health agency had not yet acquired the capacity to test in January so initially our timeline for testing was seven days about stream three or four weeks ago when CARFA developed the capacity to test our timeline was streamlined to 24 to 48 hours to get results and up to this week we are still using the Caribbean public health agency as our reference lab from last week we have acquired all of the equipment for testing and the reagents training has started today for our laboratory staff for testing so we anticipate that by Thursday Friday we should be able to test in country so our turnaround time for testing should be between two to four hours so the delay that we get when we have a suspect case should if all goes well with the training should be corrected by the end of the week and that we we are very happy for because for our other sister nations who have not yet gotten the equipment CARFA has been a bit overwhelmed with the number that they are getting from the region and we were a little concerned as to their capacity to give us the results in a timely manner so we are quite pleased that this gap this is one of the gaps that I brought up in the first meeting is going to be resolved um shortly exhaustive case finding and contact tracing which we are doing isolation centers um opened our bigger isolation center like I said with 124 beds will be open soon to increase the bed capacity for us to manage persons who need um quarantine persons who need isolation and in this group we are also keeping one of the one of the sections of the hotel our healthcare workers is of extreme importance to us and also for persons who may have had contact and not want to go home because remember we said earlier that our at-risk population are persons who are elderly so someone may have come into contact with someone who has the disease or suspect case and may not feel comfortable going to their home where they have their family so we are taking this in in consideration that some healthcare workers may not feel and our healthcare workers have been working very well we've been getting very little resistance with our suspect cases and our cases they have been assisting when needed and they are really the persons who are at highest risk so we have to ensure that the safety mechanisms are put in place and that we consider for those of them who are working with cases and do not want the risk of going home with it so this um will really allow us as we have the possibility within the next 14 days of in-country transmission it will really assist in containment and reduction of spread the the other um recommendation is the cancellation of mass gatherings and the implementation of social distancing the allocation of supplies we have supplies the budget was approved very early for the procurement as extra supplies which we have done we've also received a shipment from the OECS of supplies to supplement what we have the pan-american health organization and the OECS as well have stockpiled for the region so that when it is needed it will be provided to us to supplement what we already have now stage three is when we have established community spread and that is where we reach the real i think the war zone where we have clusters of disease the the main aim here is for clusters of disease we try to control the epidemic we have so sustainable social and economic practices a unified command system standardized guidance for patient treatment to interrupt transmission and these based on the plan are some of the mitigation strategies if you look at what we explained earlier for the stages from the information we know now i've actually we've actually put it into stage two although we do not have community spread as yet but our planning has already gone into stage two to ensure we are proactive from our evidence we have imported cases only however our planning we have moved ahead into the measures that's needed for stage two and prime minister further indicated that he will go even further to put in some of the measures that are required for stage three the the unified command so for stage two establish isolation facilities which allow single suspect case per room and this measure is being done by our 124 hotel that we are going to that we will be using as needed for those cases additional clinical um care space the expedited move to the ok eu and the use of the victoria hospital as our respiratory hospital to facilitate extra admissions that we we expect to see with covet 19 aggressive case finding and contact tracing which our teams are still doing based on those two cases that we we have cancellation of mass gatherings schools churches and the recommendation of working from home these from parts of the recommendations that we made in our consultation and protocols that we did both for the chamber and for the hotel and tourism association where we asked them to prepare the contingency plans including any capacity to work from home because we expect to get to that stage recruits additional clinical staff from cuba taiwan and india the request was made to india but based on their based on travel restrictions they are not able to provide support at this time the request has also been made for clinical support both for specialized nursing and physicians to taiwan because we anticipate an increased need and use for ventilators 12 ventilators have already been pre-ordered so we will need extra special highly specialized medical and nursing teams for that the issue that has happened with taiwan because taiwan is still seen as part of china there is a travel restriction and they're having issues for them getting out however um from last week the officer of the prime minister indicated that they are working on measures to see how they could get the teams out that was the last information that we got they have not given us a no they're still working to see how they could get the visas to come down to provide that support um a request was also made to the government of cuba and we understand they are also assisting quite a few a lot of requests have come in from the rest of the of the region we do not anticipate to get the number that we want from cuba but they have indicated that they are prepared to provide that assistance for the management of the respiratory hospital extension of the travel ban this has been done and it is done continuously as we assess the the risk and as we have indicated the travel ban is just one of the measures that we put to reduce the importation um other measures include the the screening that we do the continuous screening that we do on the airports and the strengthening of our ports we we note with the introduction of cases in martinik we had to take some very um stringent measures and we know we're getting the complaints of the delays coming off the ferry but it is all in the name of trying to reduce our risk we had ordered um the thermal temperature scanners which we'd received 50 of so we've been using those at the ports where the vessels that come in from martinik so all of the vessels that come in everybody is temperature screened using the handheld thermal scanners as well for those and we've also included from apart from we had not restricted last week but we'd also put measures in place for the uk and you and the u.s passengers in terms of being monitored and being tested and those were the measures who that helped us to get the persons from the uk who are at risk and stage three where we have established community spread is where there's a unified incident command which is neemak and even before that the prime minister activated neemak which i think is proactive to provide the necessary supervision and a higher level of command that is needed to reduce our possible impact so for our plan for in-country transmission of covid and this is what we had anticipated when we start seeing cases in the community now i keep saying when we start seeing we put the plan in place to date we do not have any um confirmation of course of cases in the community however our respiratory clinics have been open from today at the grozile poly clinic at the viewfort wellness center and also at the denry wellness center so these have commenced from today for anyone who has concerns or think they may have been in touch because some of those um our confirmed cases may have been in a hotel so we are ensuring that persons with concerns from today being our confirmed cases came in friday and saturday we have started our respiratory clinics at those three locations the other two locations before the end of the week will be will be opened to ensure that we can there's access to care without too far over distance the expedited move to vh and ok eu which the prime minister will speak to um our covid-19 treatment teams which we had we had already started training for care and they have been working for the cases that we've had in isolation cancellation of schools based on the level of the outbreak cancellation of mass crowd activities and the policy changes on sick days this has been discussed and the attorney general has already provided the avenue through which this will be facilitated when it is necessary our travel restrictions this is i think most persons know the the different countries and the different dates when the travel restrictions were instituted and also our recommendation of non-essential travels to those areas and the public service also put something out where they've been guiding public servants based on the location of certain meetings that we not attend and the general public had also been advised of that as well i think i already spoke of the enhanced screening for the us and for and for martinik some of what we in our presentations to the chamber of commerce and the business sector we had made recommendations for health education of all employees infection prevention and control in the work environment the sick day policy the work from home policy and the contingency plan for the reduced workforce for the hotels that we've been working with um quite closely because we acknowledge the level of risk the education of all staff the measures at the hotels and the travel history of their guests the isolation rooms within the hotels communication and information and the necessary contacts within the ministry if there are any um issues i want to take the opportunity for some of the gaps that we had um highlighted in the first presentation i want to i want to mention two other issues the 311 hotline we had started training from last week in anticipation of its use by the middle of this week the training will be completed so it will be in full use by midweek to the public our communications unit will put out the exact information as to when and how it be accessed the telecommunications networks both of them um have been working with us i don't know if you notice for both digison and lime you get them text messages they've been providing this free of charge to us and from we've already received the other aspect of allowing persons to get our medical information we have already received um 40 cell phones from from digicel we will be meeting with the medical and dental association we will be utilizing our medical staff we'll be using those phones with video with video capacity to provide information free of charge to the public who wants to speak directly with a physician as you would imagine during an outbreak of COVID-19 we will be asking people to stay home because 81 percent of persons who get it have mild disease we would prefer if you stay at home if you have mild disease and to come out we would not prefer for you not to get on a bus not to drive you'd further spread the disease so you would have access to physicians that you can call and explain your concerns those physicians will be able to guide you ask to do you go to a respiratory clinic in the community closest to you do you go to the hospital and advise you as to what to do how to manage so this will give the public an extra level of care we have already received the phones and we will be distributing to our physicians who have volunteered to man those phones so this is coming soon in our first meeting one of the very important areas was our lack of psychosocial support and this is a time it will be difficult for everybody we will be working and still managing maybe an elderly relative or parents who may be sick also persons who who's at home and has to be in quarantine where your daily routine would be affected and we we understand the level of fear and concern that comes with COVID-19 we do understand and we anticipate a greater level of fear when we do have cases in the community we ask to reduce for the level of stigma and discrimination when we really urge the public to work with us to use that information we will ensure that whatever and however it's done will reduce the impact on you and the level of contamination so we have already gotten a list from different sectors of psychologists and counselors the pan-american health organization has agreed that before the end of the month they will send a team to do the training for those counselors to be able to manage the the different issues and anxieties and depression that comes out of persons impacted by COVID-19 so for agencies that have not submitted their list to us we urge you to send it in a timely manner so that we can ensure we can ensure we have a wide range of persons receiving the training to be able to support our different communities if we were to get an outbreak at that level also at the end of the month I think it's March 26 from 27 the team from PAHO will be coming down to work alongside the Ministry of Health and Wellness and their teams will be looking at infection and prevention and control measures at our facility surveillance and they will be reviewing the plans that we have to date to make further recommendations so we welcome them and during this period we will also be doing training for our healthcare workers from the support of the PAHO specialists in terms of funding apart from our local budget which was approved through the Ministry of Finance up to last week the World Bank has approved through the emergency fund access for funding for equipment and for supplies as well so they will also be providing us with support we have also submitted through OECS ECCB and through PAHO our list of needs as well so I think for now I just want to indicate that the support from the various sectors in dealing with the first few cases it has been working when we get cases at the different points we've been working very closely with fire service with police and with our teams at the at the hospital and I think with every case we are able to look at the gaps that we see through the plan and to strengthen them and moving forward so with that are there any questions before we take questions specific to the presentation so thank you CMO so before we take questions to on this presentation perhaps we will just move to allow the representative of the Chamber of Commerce of course that is responsible for the Chamber of course is responsible under the NIMAC arrangement for supplies so I would ask Mr Brian Luisi the Executive Director of the Chamber to just join us at the head table so that he can present some feedback as to the supplies chain this is particularly important to ensure that we can manage and negate the panic buying and response that we've seen from the public and then Minister Dominic Fede is going to speak a little about the response in terms of the tourism sector and then we will break for questions and answers and that will be the end of our telecast section after those two presentations and then we'll go into the questions. Mr. Chairman, all good Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Ministers of Government, members of Parliament, colleagues, fellow St Lucia's ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased on behalf of the Chamber to make this short statement on what we have been doing and the consultation and consultations we've been having with our members. The signature Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture understands that as a strategy slow down the spread of the coronavirus that the government will have to introduce and encourage certain social distancing measures. The Chamber would support these measures and would wish to be part of the dialogue that would define these measures and the development of the associated protocols. It is however important that measures are put in place to ensure that the country maintains an effective food supply chain to ensure that the nation is able to import those goods and other critical supplies. The Chamber would expect that no effort would be spared to ensure that trading goods continue and that the seaport remains open to commercial cargo. In that regard, the Chamber needs assurances that SLASPA is able to facilitate trade and keep the supply chain open while maintaining a high degree of safety for all those involved. The Chamber and I daresay the wider business community is prepared to work with SLASPA in that regard. Dialogue is also needed with customs and haulers and truckers to make this work. The Chamber recognises that the country's supermarket and other critical retailers, pharmacies for instance, are regarded as essential services and will be expected to continue to operate and serve the general public. Our members are prepared to continue operations to meet the needs of the country. Yet as a country we need to plan for the eventuality that these organisations may need support in delivering those services due to security concerns. Specific mention and treatment needs to be given to the continued even if limited servicing of the down trade channels. Our members service over 1200 moment pop shops whose communities depend on them for essential service, essential items. This is even more critical during a partial or full social distancing scenario that may include many buses. The socioeconomic status of the customers who shop at moment pop shops do not allow them to drive a car to a supermarket or pharmacy for food or over-the-counter items. This must be taken account of in all our planning. Chamber urges government to put measures in place and will support those measures to prevent panic and or civil unrest as well as others to mitigate against criminal activity. Special provisions should be made for armed forces to be assigned to God healthcare facilities, pharmacies, distribution warehouses, retailers and under down trade vehicles to reduce the burden of additional security costs to protect against disruptive, unscrupulous and criminal behaviour in the possible wake of perceived scarcity of products. The Chamber wishes to advise government that after consultation with suppliers that there are at this time no current supply chain interruptions for food. In fact, members have increased orders and are working towards further increasing the stock levels. Please understand that this situation is very fluid and may change. However, at this time we have not faced any challenges. Once the transportation and shipment channels remain open, we don't expect problems. It is critical that government identify a priority list of maybe COVID-19 products to receive priority clearance upon arrival in Zinousha. I want to reiterate that this statement must be treated with caution because the situation is dynamic and depends on the source market for the goods or for the raw materials. We anticipate that there could be interruptions depending on how hard hit we are and how long the situation persists. Therefore, we believe that maximum limits may need to be placed on an identified list of essential cleaning, disinfecting items, food, prescriptions and over-the-counter items. For example, we know that the active pharmacutical ingredients for certain drugs come from China and this will likely cause shortages in the medium term. We know that China supplies a large percentage of the world's parent rules for pulp and tissue. And so until we investigate more fully our supply chains deeper, including our local and regional supplies, I can say the above is given advisedly. Chamber members will, on their part, ensure that all measures are put in place to protect employees and the public as we continue to serve them. The Chamber however wishes to inform that there appears to be challenges in the availability of sanitizing and cleaning products. In that context, we again suggest that government should provide all possible support to local firms able to manufacture these products or convert their operations to produce these goods, as these are needed not just locally but regionally. This is critical because USA suppliers are minded to redirect these resources to their situation on the ground and these governments could intervene to decide on where those supplies go. I point out that some local producers may be considered for such support including toiling, nat-med, senusia distillers, and chemical. We recommend government needs to give active and aggressive support to these local efforts to produce the cleaning agents locally. This call is also important to improve the availability of these products to mitigate the hoarding and panic buying that appears to be occurring. I wish to conclude by reinforcing the fact that we believe that the Ministry of Health has done an outstanding job as a lead ministry in this matter and the business community has engaged with them quite a bit and we want to commend them on that effort. The business community appreciates the tremendous pressure the Ministry of Health has been under and extends words of encouragement and support for their continued efforts. I thank you. Prime Minister, Honourable Alan Shastney, Leader of the Opposition, Honourable Philip J. Pierre, other members of Parliament, Ministers of Government that are here today. My cabinet colleagues want to recognize at the Head Table as well the Honourable Minister for Commerce, Honourable Bradley Felix, and other members of the Head Table. The Ministry of Health is also at the Head Table, Honourable Mary Isaac and her outstanding team and the great job they're doing in leading our country so far. If there is ever a time where tourism is experiencing one of its most challenging time in history, it's now. The scenarios on the confidence of business, on the confidence of the market in terms of consumers and on the confidence of employees is extremely dire and severe. Just to give you a little scenario that is taking place in St Lucia, we've had a meeting on Friday with the industry where we met with them to do two things, one to understand their concerns and their issues and as well to as well to see as government considered a stimulus package for the national economy, what would tourism want that package to be like. In addition to that, we have been surveying a number of hotels through the tourism authority to get a very strong and scientific indication as to what the problems are. We've also been in constant contact with the trades, travel agents, store operators, airlines to get a firsthand knowledge as to how the market is responding and what the realities are on the ground. So while the global situation for some regions have been more severe than the Caribbean, the perception by consumers seems to suggest that the Caribbean is not a high risk area for transmission of the disease or at least not just yet. But that does not necessarily mean that tourism does not have its own challenges as Caribbean destinations seek to preserve ourselves as that safe haven for our residents and most importantly our citizens. That in itself sends its own level of discomfort and its own level of lack of confidence in people wanting to travel. So the biggest deterrence we have for travel now is not the safety of the Caribbean, but the fear of one being quarantined when they come to a specific destination is one of those issues. The other issue is getting stuck on an island and the third is this growing policy by companies to discourage their employees from traveling not just on business travel but also on personal vacation time. You might say well that's not, we don't cure at this point. We're seeing that airports that have become ghost towns, the only time that they are busy is to facilitate repatriation of their own nationals back into their own countries. We've received a report from Forward Keys, an organization that works with Ayata to measure the pace of travel and in real time what they have shown us over the last three weeks ending last week. The first week suggested that there was a decline in outbound travel to the Caribbean, not St. Lucia just the Caribbean, which suggested that the numbers were down by 14%. By week number two it was down by 17% and by week number three it was down 38%. And so what I'm trying to show you is that this is moving at a rapid pace that the travel community cannot keep up with. Airlines cannot keep up with the pace of cancellations, with the pace of no bookings when hotels compare their pace or the forward bookings. So if we take a look at April, May, June those months are showing as much as 60% declines in performance or in terms of a lack of bookings when compared to the same period last year. In our case in St. Lucia, what we have found is that we have lost some 15,750 cruise passengers already by canceling some seven calls. So when the Prime Minister said that at no time did we place business over the health of the nation, these are some of the numbers and these are some of the very harsh decisions which we took. And I'm very proud that St. Lucia was able to lead that initiative by saying to the big powerful cruise industry, no, the health and safety of our people came first. And I want to congratulate the CMO and her team for supporting the tourism department in the manner that they have. In the coming days, there are some 16 cruise calls which would be affected. We're talking in the region of 30 to 45,000 visits by cruise passengers to St. Lucia, which would have been affected by the travel ban which we have just implemented on cruise passengers for the foreseeable future. The airline industry is also severely affected. With the travel ban which has come into effect tomorrow, that is going to have implications on at least seven flights a week from British Airways and another four or five from Virgin Atlantic. So we're talking about some 11 flights being disrupted this week. We had to move very quickly. We got on a call this morning to reach out to our stakeholders at British Airways to indicate to them the whole backdrop by which we have made this decision. I must tell you that I want to commend the tourism community for their spirit of goodwill and for their comprehensive understanding of the situation which befalls us at this point in time. We also would want to thank the hotels and their guest houses for assisting us in this repatriating effort. There is estimated to be somewhere in the region of about some 3,000 guests, British Airways guests alone, not counting those that came in via Virgin Atlantic. When we added up, we could be somewhere in the region of four to five thousand people that we need to repatriate back to the United Kingdom as a result of the travel ban. At least one major hotel has decided to close its doors in light of the scenario that we have just seen, the uncertainty and the difficulty that is affecting the tourism industry. Its board is meeting to discuss what level of compensation it will offer to employees. And we want to commend that company to at least considering compensation for its employees in what will be a rather difficult time for the local economy. Just to put it into perspective, every time a guest comes through the airport, that's a hundred U.S. dollars that go to government revenue. Every night an average vacation in St. Lucia, somewhere in the region of $2,500, that's 250 U.S. dollars in vat sales just on one vacation. And so right there we see between the airport tax and the room tax, we're losing $350 per person average. The confidence of the hotel community therefore within the context of this crisis is one that is extremely bleak. We see as well that marinas are being disrupted as we remove the clearance facilities from our three ports of entry, namely Marigold, Rodney Bay and Souffre. And we're focusing on a beefed up processing of marine vessels coming to our shores at the castries ferry terminal in an effort to build our defense and strengthen our capacity to be able to deal with any potential spread of this disease from tourists coming through our shores. Another hotel yesterday in which Sunday is a very big arrival day, one hotel reported 80% of their guests that were scheduled to come in as no-shows. And that is a major hotel with close to 300 rooms and that suggests the severity and the complexity of the problem which is impacting us at this time. The travel industry is doing as much as it can to survive in this rather perilous time. From being flexible with cancellation policies, airlines are ensuring that people with their name changes and all of the things that you would have paid for are now being offered for free in an effort to stimulate the customer to make that investment now to continue traveling. At our meeting with the hotel community and maybe now it has changed significantly because what obtained yesterday is not tomorrow's reality because of the pace at which this is moving. It is hard for anyone to plan but at our meeting on Friday suffice it to say that as of Friday hotels had a very mixed approach to this. Some were being conservative as it pertains to their marketing plans while others were saying well maybe we can market our way out of this crisis. Following the Cabinet announcement on Saturday that we were going to close the border to our second largest market which is the United Kingdom which represents some 20 percent of our total stayover arrivals but in terms of room nights it would be somewhere in the region of about 25 percent because we have longer stays coming from the British customer and in terms of revenue that market is also very critical to a number of our hotels as well. In some cases some of our hotels are driven by the British business and so this is going to fall out significantly for them and their bottom line and being able to keep their employees at bay and keep their staff employed and keep paying salaries and keep meeting all the expenses and keep consumption levels going and the circulation that is required of the tourism flows so that they can be some economic sustenance. I want to tell you that despite all of this the tourism community has been nothing but noble and good spirited in this whole response to the crisis that is taking place and I want to take this opportunity to commend them again that even amidst this difficult time that they have been nothing but supportive and nothing but forthcoming with solutions. At our meeting yesterday the representative for the hotel community that has the tourism enhancement fund did make an offer to use their tourism enhancement fund in any way they possibly can to help with some of the expenses that are required in this whole recovery process so this is the sum of the spirit in which the tourism sector is responding to this challenge. I must also tell you that for tourism employees there's an absolute state of panic because the two cases that we have recorded thus far would have sent shock waves among the tourism community. Now one of the challenges that we are facing is the misinformation that is being circulated so some of the employees heard well it is the hotel that they work at another employee here is that it's no it's not that hotel it's our hotel and so the rumor mill is also suggesting that somehow the management of hotels are hiding from their staff where the guests actually emanated from which is an absolute falsity. The hotels that where the guests are staying they've been nothing but transparent in fact yesterday I believe that there was a meeting by one of the hotels to help to calm the nerves of their staff to help to encourage them and I want to thank the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Tourism for joining that meeting to give that support that was required so that we can bring about the confidence levels needed but people are concerned about their health and safety and that is foremost and we are as well but as we as we find ourselves in this catch-22 situation between scaling down the tourism sector and keeping hotels operating but as well dealing with a very difficult health crisis it is causing a state of shock and panic among employees and so as we consider our response we will need to reach out to the tourism community with factual information consistently because a lot of these workers are on the front line and we have to do our best to ensure that the tourism community is part and parcel of that scenario and so the Ministry of Tourism the SLHTA and the the St Lucia Tourism Authority is going to form a little subcommittee to ensure that we be the link and the bridge of communication between the wider body and the tourism sector ensuring that we give them timely information factual information to help to fight the assault of misinformation which continues to spread across our island. Just this morning I received a voice note saying that we have some 25 cases and somebody said the latest cases some were in view for and there was even a voice note which suggested that a government minister was one of the cases so the rumor mill is churning so fast and if there is one enemy that we face in responding to this crisis is that rumor mill and it's causing an unfortunate panic it's causing shock and it's unnecessary and we all have to hold hands together and join forces from our various positions of leadership to ensure that we bring the correct information to people so that we can respond to this in a factual clinical and one that is evidence-based. So I want to thank you for allowing me the opportunity to address you again I can tell you that no one in the industry is worried too much about profits per se we're all trying our best to see how we can preserve St Lucia if there was ever a time where the health and safety of a destination has been risen to prominence in terms of the success of that destination it is now I think everyone wants to ensure that we build the defense and that we keep the reputation of St Lucia and the Caribbean as one of the least affected regions of this disease I thank you so very much if I can just if you don't mind Mr. Chairman I just want to add a couple things first of all I noticed my minister is also doing it and I just want to make it very very clear we're not putting any travel bans on any country in the world the protocol is is that anyone coming from areas that we've designated as high risk that we've simply said anybody coming from those destinations would have to be automatically going to a quarantine of 14 days and that we were encouraging solutions themselves only to travel to those destinations on an absolute need-to-be basis so people can come from the UK or from any of the other countries that we've put on the caution list but it means that instead of voluntarily waiting to see what happens where they have any symptoms automatically they would go into a quarantine for 14 days self quarantine for 14 days before they're allowed to come and circulate and this is a common feature we're very much trying not to again also identify countries so again it's not about citizens from those countries it's anyone that travels from those countries so you could have a person of a different citizenship coming from a European country but once that person was coming through that country that automatically what these restrictions would apply to them the other thing that's a very important note is that most of the hotels that I've spoken to their insurance policies currently do not apply to pandemics so it means that in their loss of income insurance policies like you would have in a hurricane or something else it's not going to apply so any efforts that they're going to be making are going to be directly from them and I just want to reiterate what the minister said the level of corporation and empathy that we've been seeing coming from the communities is tremendous and and specifically some of our indigensely owned guest houses who've allowed their facilities to be used as quarantine areas despite the the continual prevalence of of stigma and again I'm asking solutions to stop and desist from doing this and making this out to be worse than it is this is at worst a respiratory disease of which has been around for a very long time and we should not try to over stigmatize it but I certainly want to really applaud those companies in particular solutions who've risen to the challenge and been able to help us and I will be announcing tonight two particular hoteliers who've also gone the extra mile in being able to donate is that the word agree to use their facilities in order to be able to support the local population so again we're going to continue working with the sector and this is not something that's specific to tourism this is affecting every single global business in the world and has significant ramifications so at this time just to indicate that the plan is to end our meeting by and now we've come to the end there of the open session for the national emergency management advisory committee meeting which is chaired by prime minister the honorable annan shasne now the floor has been opened up to questions but I'm going to give you just a sort of review of so much that has been said already for this morning starting from the most recent presenter which was the honorable Dominic Thady the minister for tourism and he spoke to some of the what is happening within that sector very critical for the stability of this thing Lucian economy the minister stated in the region of 13 000 direct tourism workers and already that the sector has seen 15 000 cruise passengers being lost after seven cruise ships were not permitted to berth here 11 flights a week now being lost between british aries and virgin atlantic and and that is happening as a result of the travel bans that have been implemented also we heard that at least one hotel will be closing down and right now the minister indicated that the board of directors is considering compensation packages for the workers there and prime minister and honorable annan shasne and during his address to the nation this evening will be announcing certain support programs for the private sector which will be including the hotel sector on the medical front we did hear from doctor sharon belmar george who spoke about the efforts now at contact tracing and that is continuing that is following the first case that we had here first confirmation case of covid-19 from the female passenger who visitor who came in from the united kingdom via granada we also heard that in the event of in-country transmission an arrangement has been made with an hotel for the provision of 124 beds where quarantine will be happening in the for persons who are also in the transition stage those who have mild cases and of course severe cases the doctor belmar george also announced that that hotel which has five blocks there will also be provision for healthcare workers who will be able to stay at that hotel of course for fear of having to go home and perhaps infect family members there was also training that has commenced today for the testing kits that came on on island and the expectation is or the aim is that by the end of the week the laboratory staff will be fully fully equipped to be able to begin testing right here in st lucia for covid-19 pahu and the oacs have stockpiled on necessary supplies which will be able to supplement the stockpiled already by the government of st lucia now most very very important here respiratory clinics that have been opened castries grossly so for a view and denry the hotline 311 will be activated following training of staff that is by next week and their people will be able to call in for guidance on what to do if they do suspect covid cases a command center is being established that will be responsible for and try and implementation of all of the protocols for covid-19 finally on the economic side of things once again the prime minister did indicate that the economic fallout will be dire and carry command the oacs are taking a collective approach in how the countries will be dealing with this they have been in discussions with the international monetary fund the imf for special financial facilities to be made available to them and once again the prime minister will be addressing the nation this evening and in that address he will be outlining more concisely all of the plans that the government has decided upon for the management of covid-19 in st lucia from the government information service on behalf of the entire team i am lisa joseph