 Welcome to NTN Nightly. I am Jesse Layance. This edition's top story, St. Lucia records the single highest number of COVID-19 cases in a day. St. Lucia Sports Academy receives e-books as Ministry of Education continues to transform the education sector and initial beneficiaries of the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports' new and emerging athletes' policy. St. Lucia has recorded the single highest number of COVID-19 cases in a day. On Friday 23 October 2020, six individuals including three children were diagnosed. They are all from one household in castries. This brings the total number of active confirmed cases currently isolated in care to 21. Case number 43 is a 40-year-old male. Case number 44 is a 38-year-old female. Case number 45 is a 3-year-old female. Case number 46 is a 12-year-old female. Case number 47 is a 4-year-old male. And case number 48 is a 47-year-old female from the grocery district. This is the single highest number of cases diagnosed within one day. As the Ministry of Health and Wellness continues its response to cases, it is important to state that with the increasing number of cases that each individual recognizes that they have the ability to reduce the spread of this virus. By keeping to the infection prevention and control guidelines, the spread of the virus from one person to another can be stopped. The Ministry of Health will make a strong appeal once again to everyone that if you are experiencing respiratory symptoms which include cough, sore throat, fever, please promptly seek care at the closest respiratory clinic. Anyone experiencing these symptoms should not be in the workplace participating in social activities or in public places like banks, supermarkets, or stores. The Ministry of Health will take this opportunity to remind everyone that it is important to ensure a mask is always worn in public places, maintain the six-foot physical distance from the next person, which is about two arms distance or two arms length, and follow the floor markers in public places where they are available. Wash and sanitize your hands throughout the day and to cover your sneeze and cough with a tissue or use your inner elbow when tissue is not available. Through contact tracing, health officials have determined that case number 43 is a close contact of case number 39, a 38-year-old male from the Denver region. He was tested during a community testing exercise. And the six newly diagnosed cases were identified through the contact tracing processes and were in quarantine pending their results. They are all now in isolation for care. The Ministry of Health encourages members of the public who have respiratory signs and symptoms to immediately visit their closest community respiratory clinic for care. Additionally, if any members of the public are aware that they had contact with the cases diagnosed, that is cases 37 to 48, they are encouraged to also present themselves at community respiratory clinics for testing. Effective this weekend and until further notice, the Ministry of Health has extended the hours of operation at community respiratory clinics. The public is asked to note that services will now be available on Saturdays at the Viewfort Respiratory Clinic, the Grossly Poly Clinic, and the Denver Hospital from 8am to 4pm. The public is reminded that the Sufer Hospital continues to offer a 24-hour service daily, which includes the weekend. In the meantime, the impact of COVID-19 is very evident as the annual Juniquial festivities have been cancelled. Government has also reviewed the number of persons for mass crowd events from 100 to 50 persons. Prime Minister Hon. Alan Chastney spoke to the issue in a Facebook post on Friday. This morning we got the sad news that we had six additional cases, all in one family. But the good news is that the CMO and her contact tracing team have done an outstanding job, and all of these persons were already in quarantine, very much like most of the recent cases that we've had. This is an important fact because it means that our contact tracing team now have gotten ahead of the situation. But the truth is that we do have a community spread and it is going to require us to continue to practice proper protocols, wear your face mask, continue to practice social distancing, and make sure you're hand sanitizing at all times. Now this is very important because we're coming up to Juniquial, and it means that the temptation to get out and start socializing more and maybe drop our guard a little bit is going to be there. We all want you to have a great weekend, but I'm asking all of us, we're reducing the crowd size from 100 to 50 or less. When you're having your home parties, please continue to practice proper protocols. Try to keep your mask on as much as possible. Make sure that you're social distancing and try to wash your hands as often as possible. And make sure that we have a great weekend. So Lucia, we have a fight on our hands, but we can win this fight. We can do it. We can do it again. The Central Statistical Office reopens in time to lead the local observance of World Statistics Day, 20th October 2020. Closure of the office earlier this month was prompted by a number of employees within the unit reporting flu-like symptoms. Permanent Secretary Claudius Immanuel has confirmed that these individuals have since tested negative for the coronavirus. Back at work, statistics officials are leveraging World Statistics Day to sensitize the public on the upcoming population and housing census. Details in this report. The Central Statistical Office promotes participation in the upcoming population and housing census 2020, as it observes Caribbean and World Statistics Day 15th and 20th October respectively. Director at the Central Statistical Office, Sean Mathura, indicates that progress on the population and housing census 2020 was disrupted by COVID-19. Prior to the pandemic, he says the unit made significant headway with preparations. We were at a very advanced stage in our preparations for census. We had just concluded a significant activity, which would have prepared us to actually be able to commence with the data collection to start getting ready to do the actual data collection. But unfortunately, with the COVID-19, we had to hold all our preparatory activities. We're just hoping that when we're able to to recommence our preparations, that we'll be able to do so with the same momentum that we had just prior to the outbreak of the COVID-19. The theme for this year's Statistics Day is connecting the world with data we can trust. The public is encouraged to cooperate with enumerators when the Central Statistical Office is able to conduct field data collection operations. We rely on the cooperation of the public to provide that information. What I would like to also bring out is that we're mandated by our Statistics Act to ensure that it relates to confidentiality. That's something that we take very seriously at the Statistics Department. So, while we have the mandate and the responsibility to compile and produce and collect statistics, we need that we rely on the cooperation of the general public to do so and to be able to effectively and successfully carry out that mandate. Most activities to observe Statistics Day are cancelled due to reviewed COVID-19 protocols on Ireland. However, interested persons can visit the Central Statistics Office at the Finance Administrative Centre to view a display of statistical products and information on the population and housing census. The objective of this, as well as virtual engagements by the unit, is to advance the awareness of statistics and its significance to the development of the country. The St. Lucia Sports Academy has been presented with e-books as the Department of Education, Innovation and Gender Relations continues to roll out its ICT in education program. More from Lisa Joseph. The Electronic Learning Device, the Learn Book, is part of a three-year pilot project across secondary schools that focuses on broadening information technology in the classroom. The initiative stems from the ratification of the ICT in education policy, which sets the framework for e-education initiatives being undertaken by the Department of Education, Innovation and Gender Relations. In February this year, students from 13 secondary schools receive devices and now the St. Lucia Sports Academy is welcoming its batch of Learn Books as the program broadens. The Learn Book contains content that is aligned with the CSEC syllabus. It allows for interactive, engaging learning by bringing concepts to life with the help of videos, diagrams, activities, quizzes, virtual labs and real-time simulations. It is accessible both on and offline. Michelle Chance is the permanent secretary in the Department of Education, Innovation and Gender Relations. When we rolled out this initiative earlier this year, we provided students with only six subjects on the device. But I can proudly see that our devices this time have 17 subject areas. We are covering the sciences, the languages, the social sciences and the business subjects and some technical subjects as well. So I think all of the subjects being offered to you, the students at the Sports Academy, is all of the subjects incorporated on the device. With the Learn Book teachers can issue notifications, track each student's progress and provide individual attention in real-time. Honorable Dr. Gail Rigobot is the Minister of Education, Innovation, Gender Relations and Sustainable Development. Development unit along with the IT unit for bringing to full fruition that ambition of ours, that vision of ours, not only to equip you with the hardware, but to ensure that it is fully loaded with the curriculum that you are following here at the Sports Academy and that your teachers too would have received the requisite training to allow for you and the teacher to leverage the technology contained within the e-books. Earlier this year as the Ministry rolled out the pilot phase, the consultant on the project spoke of the benefits of the Learn Book. One of the top benefits here is the interactivity aspect of it. So if a user is reading a physical textbook, as opposed to a physical textbook, here the user can not only interact with the elements, but all the keywords, for example, complex words that are tough to pronounce or pronunciations. There are some scientific words that are tough to remember the definitions for. They are all clickable. They have the definitions for those words. There are school facts within the book, so they are strategically placed, which means a user can actually break down the reading monotony. So sometimes when it's a dry topic, a user's reading, there's a cool fact towards the end that can break reading monotony. For the teachers, the benefits here are end-of-section quizzes. So towards the end of every section, there's ready-made questions, quizzes, that the teacher can ask the students to take towards the end of the section to kind of evaluate what's the user progression at the end of each section. And towards the end of the chapter, there's an end-of-chapter test where the teacher can give out the password right before she wants to take a class test. Principal of the Sports Academy, Delia Alsendo-Charles, says teachers and students are looking forward to transitioning to the e-book. We know that we live in a tech-work environment and taking our students to the next level. IT skills, digital literacy skills are extremely important. The Learn Book project replaces the one laptop per child program which ended in 2017. From the Government Information Service, Lisa Joseph reports in. The Ministry of Youth Development and Sports has presented scholarships to two athletes under their new and emerging athlete policy. Ryan O'Brien has the details. Two of the island's emerging athletes have received scholarships from the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports as it continues developing its elite and emerging athlete policy. The policy will see young athletes receiving financial support from the Ministry to ensure they are able to take their skills and talents to higher levels. Checks were presented recently to table tennis player Deandre Kaljuan and athlete Naomi London. We recognize that some of our athletes are in need of a lot of financial support and this is one of the areas we are looking at where it comes to the new policy that we are in the process of developing. This morning we will see two of our emerging athletes in the name of Deandre Kaljuan and Naomi London receiving checks as part of the elite and emerging athlete program. We have other athletes who have received financial support through this program but this morning we are officially handing over checks to these two athletes who make the elite and emerging program will also receive financial support from the Ministry. I am very thankful this morning for the Ministry of Youth and Sports for undertaking such an initiative in terms of providing assistance to our young athletes being in track and field and coaching for a while. This has been one of the challenges for our young athletes in St. Lucia in terms of finance equipment and what have you. Coming on board with such a program I think is a big step in the right direction. Some of the athletes are already saying that they need to work hard to ensure that they get onto a program with the Ministry of Youth and Sports so athletes are already starting to want to be like those athletes that are already on the program so it is very good I explain it to other athletes and they say wow that is great. Chris Wells is Kaljuan's coach and took the opportunity to see young athletes. I am so proud of two young athletes who are now going to be an example for many young persons in St. Lucia to actually follow that hard work actually pays off and also like to continue encouraging parents out there as well as the parents we have here with us today for trusting us coaches to work with your kids. That is a big responsibility so we are thanking you for helping us to have that impact on your kids in a positive way and also like to always keep thanking our Ministry of Youth Development and Sports for always continuing to spare our efforts and to give us the backing that we need to create top and emerging athletes for St. Lucia. Isabel Alexander Marquis is a school sports coordinator at the Ministry she reminded the athletes that the hard work paid off and it's close that she had been following their progress during the various events put on by the Ministry. I know how much work and effort you put into it. I know how much the coaches and your parents have been behind you for you to succeed. This is a lesson to all other athletes out there that indeed you must put in the effort you must put in the hours you must put in the hard work and to not give up the aspirations to your goals. Every one of us wants to be a serious sports person we know where we want to reach whether it's the Olympics or just regional or even just maintaining our physical fitness. So let me once again encourage you to continue on the path that you are heading and the Ministry is always there to support you. Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports Caroline Eugene commended the athletes on their achievements and urged them to continue striving for excellence. From the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports, I'm Ryan O'Brien. Up next, we have Prima Satansan with the NTN Novella way on. COVID-19 is a new pandemic disease as declared by the World Health Organization. It is transmitted directly by respiratory droplets when an affected person coughs or sneezes or indirectly through rubbing the face with contaminated hands. There is still no specific treatment or vaccine against COVID-19 and as such the farming community should adhere to some special recommendations. Limit the number of crew members to only essential persons. Practice frequent hand washing and cleaning of all boat surfaces. Limit contact with the public keeping a safe distance between each person. Limit unnecessary conversation with customers and pairs during the sale of fish. Wash hands frequently with soap and running water or use 60-95% alcohol-based hand sanitizer until water and soap are available. Sneeze and cough in a flexed elbow or into a tissue immediately discarding the used tissue into a bin and wash hands with soap and water or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer until soap and water and avoid close contact with persons having respiratory symptoms. More than ever before your important role as gatekeepers of St. Lucia's nutritional health and food security should be taken seriously. When you exercise these precautions you not only safeguard your health but also continue to allow all St. Lucia's access to freshly caught fish and other seafood. Remember it is our responsibility to ensure our nation eats fresh St. Lucia's Best. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.