 Welcome to the NTN Nightly, I'm Nisha Charles. This edition stops stories. Over half a billion dollars has been requested to help support our response plan to the 2019 coronavirus. Reducing crime and violence in the region gets a boost as a regional juvenile justice reform project nears its end and the ECCB backs St. Lucia's plans for a national health insurance scheme. The World Health Organization have called on the international community to support its efforts to launch a strategic and preparedness response plan to support countries to prevent, detect and diagnose onward transmission of the 2019 novel coronavirus. The WHO has requested some 675 million US dollars to fund the plan for the next three months. After a press briefing on Wednesday, the WHO Director-General said that if we do not invest today, we will pay more later. 675 million US dollars is a lot of money, but it's much less than the bill we will face if we do not invest in preparedness now during the window of opportunity that we have. Once again, we cannot defeat this outbreak without solidarity, political solidarity, technical solidarity and financial solidarity. I would like to thank the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for quickly stepping up to offer 100 million US dollars in support for accelerating response efforts, strengthening preparedness systems in the most vulnerable countries and to support diagnostics, vaccine and treatment research and development. As of February 5, 2020, there have been 24,363 confirmed cases in China and 490 dead. Outside of China, there are at least 191 cases in 24 countries. Of those cases, 31 are people who have had no travel history to China but has had close contact with someone who has traveled to Wuhan, China. The WHO Director-General says his greatest concern remains the spread of the virus to countries with weaker health systems or those who lack capacity to detect and diagnose the virus. We continue to support the Chinese government's efforts to address the outbreak at the epicenter, at the source in Wuhan. We must not forget how difficult this is for the people of Wuhan. But doing our best at the epicenter slows the spread of the virus and that's what we're seeing. We're also continuing to provide scientific leadership today. The strategic and technical advisory group chaired by Dr. David Heyman has met and given us advice, especially on areas that we don't know. Separately, WHO has released a total of 9 million US dollars from our own contingency fund for emergencies. While St. Lucia has not reported any cases of the virus thus far, the island's health minister has echoed the calls of the Ministry of Health and Wellness to practice standard recommendations to prevent the spread of infection. These include regular hand washing with soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizer with soap and water, where soap and water is not available. Cover mouth and nose with disposable tissue or clothing when coughing and sneezing. Avoid close contact with anyone showing symptoms of respiratory illness, such as coughing and sneezing. Seek medical attention and share your travel history with your healthcare provider if you have symptoms, suggestive or respiratory illness, either during or after travel. Meantime, the Department of Health and Wellness is working closely with the St. Lucia Fire Service to ensure awareness and sensitization on ways to manage and prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Emergency medical technicians, EMTs and fire responders around the island will grant the opportunity to strengthen their capacity on ways to effectively control the spread of coronavirus, through sensitization sessions held recently. Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Glence Ford-Joseph says the Department of Health and Wellness is dedicated to ensuring the EMTs and fire responders take the necessary precautionary measures in the event of a possible case of coronavirus. The Ministry of Health must have collaboration with key stakeholders, including the fire service. And for this reason, we are here conducting these sensitization training with the firemen. As we know, they are on the frontline. When there is a call to pick up a patient with certain symptoms, they may very well be asked to pick up someone with a respiratory illness and a fever. And so we have to let them know the precautionary measures, the signs and symptoms of the condition, and how they can protect themselves, their family and the nation as a whole. Emergency medical service coordinator, Iranias Henry Sez, is very pleased with the training as it will equip the EMTs and fire responders with knowledge on how to treat any possible case of the coronavirus. The information was welcome. The recruits asked several questions. And when you do have outbreaks and stuff like that, the collaboration helps since the EMTs are the first line of contact with persons because they are the ones who initially do the treatment and transport to the health facility. So they are usually the first contact. So when you have an outbreak, they are the ones affected. And if they are not cautious in the way they present themselves, they can be infected and also pose their family and other persons at risk. So the program is very important that they are sensitized as to how to protect themselves, how to approach a patient who they think may have the illness. The Department of Health and Wellness encourages Inclusions to take the necessary steps to protect themselves from the coronavirus. Reporting from the Communications Unit of the Ministry of Health and Wellness, I am Fena Leptun. Reducing crime and violence among the youth in the Caribbean is a high priority for citizens and governments within the region. For the government of St. Lucia, it's part of its medium-term development plan for citizen safety with a goal of a 45% reduction in serious crimes by 2022 and a 30% reduction in repeat offending by that same year. Juveniles form part of that percentage, but with the help of the OECS Juvenile Justice Reform Project II, the country hopes to achieve that goal. The project is in its final stages and recently held a training workshop on its Diversion Strategy Implementation Plan. Building on the first Juvenile Justice Reform Program, the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, the OECS, through its Juvenile Justice Reform Project, the JJRP II, seeks to strengthen juvenile justice systems to promote the rehabilitation and reintegration of youth in conflict with the law back into society. The JJRP II targets youth aged 18 and under, who are in conflict with the law in Antigua and Barbuda, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The project works with a wide cross-section of stakeholders, including multiple ministries, communities, NGOs and the private sector, to implement reform measures that, taken together, will result in more modernized systems of youth justice in the Caribbean. The Diversion Strategy Implementation Plan is one such measure. Juvenile Justice Expert Gary Wendt says diverting juveniles from formal court proceedings is critical. By the time a child sees the police, sees the DPP, sees the probation officer and appears in front of the magistrate for initial inquiry, that is a major substantive intervention for a child to go through. That's one example of it. The whole process needs to be done collaboratively within the community. So I'm hoping as a result of this meeting today that a working group will consist of the DPP, the magistrate, probation, school authorities and perhaps defense counsel as well. Magistrates, members of the DPP's office, social workers, the probation office, as well as human services were all present at the training workshop. They shared their greatest takeaways from the training. What has jumped out to everybody, I suppose, is the mere fact that we have not, as state agencies, come together to decide upon a proper implementation of the Diversion Strategy, of the provisions of the Act. People are on different pages and what is immensely important, what came out this morning, was that everybody must be on the same page and we have to do it as agencies collaborating together for the interests of the child and the interests of the country. We have a plethora of various situations that require children and especially youth at risk to benefit from programs that would take them away from the juvenile justice system, take them away from the criminal justice system. As such, I see that the Diversionary Programmes would help to effectively establish programs that would help those children to ameliorate conditions where they are now becoming more productive, more pro-social. So yes, indeed I welcome this particular training that would help prepare or to equip the various agencies with the tools needed to help youth at risk. The juvenile justice expert believes that this approach will ultimately reduce recidivism and overall crime. I think a lot of kids will avoid stigmatization by not going through formal court proceedings and this is about a mission about juvenile justice and doing individual justice for individual children and reducing crime. And what I mean by reducing crime is that high-end offenders, high-risk offenders, should be dealt with with more services, more intervention as opposed to low-risk kids, medium-risk kids, because if you reduce recidivism, you reduce crime. If you reduce crime, you increase public safety. The JJRP2 will provide ongoing assistance for implementation of model laws, regulations, policies and protocols in the six OECS countries and introduce diversion and alternative sentencing, psychosocial services, rehabilitation services and reintegration of youth leaving rehabilitation facilities and programs. And this is the NTN Nightly. We'll be back in a moment. The Ministry of Tourism is working alongside the Department of Statistics to develop St. Lucia's Tourism Satellite Account, TSA. The Tourism Satellite Account is an internationally established method of measuring the direct contributions of tourism to our national economy. This will help the government in developing effective policy for the industry. If you are in the business of tourism, the Ministry needs your help in collecting critical data necessary for this tourism satellite account. Let's all help to develop and improve our economy. All tourism-related establishments are asked to contact the Ministry at 468-5393 before Friday the 28th of February for further information specific to their business. Welcome back. The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, the ECCB, is in full support of the Government of St. Lucia's plan to introduce a national health insurance scheme. Governor of the ECCB Timothy Antoine notes that health is expensive and as a result the successful management of a healthcare system including a national health insurance scheme is paramount. In terms of moving forward in national health insurance, it's very important to continue to promote very strongly primary healthcare which is prevention, healthy and active lifestyles. Because what we found when you look around the region, you look at BVI, you look at Turks and Caicos, you look at Cayman and others that have national health insurance. The secondary healthcare and tertiary healthcare that is where people are hospitalized or where people need advanced procedures are extremely expensive and very difficult for the state to manage. So obviously we want quality healthcare, we want to see national health insurance programs but we also have a word of caution. Governments must work with citizens to ensure the promotion of primary healthcare. That will reduce the impact on the fiscal accounts. The Governor explained the importance of ensuring that a lean administrative arrangement exists in conjunction with quality health services. Avoid building up a large bureaucracy to manage the national health insurance. That itself is a cost. Our recommendation has been to leverage the national insurance corporation or the national insurance. Separate funds because the national insurance deals with pensions and certain benefits. Health insurance is separate and has to be separately funded. But to leverage the administrative platform that already exists rather than create an additional bureaucracy. Third, we recommend that efforts be made to set standards for healthcare providers. And we believe that is potentially a regional approach. So as people are delivering health services and a basket under health insurance, you need to make sure that whoever is providing it, whether it's a doctor, a nurse, a healthcare provider or a professional, are operating at a certain standard. People have to upgrade it regularly. People have to be officers. That is important to make sure that you do not compromise the quality of care. The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank emphasises the need for more centres of excellence. And we still believe, although we know that is perhaps politically challenging, that because of the cost of certain specialised services, there is still a role for us to look at centres of excellence around the region. So that every country does not have to be the specialist for cancer, the specialist for a particular area. But we can work with the member countries to develop expertise and then sort of use these expertise to make available to our citizens of 650,000. So those are just some advice that we give. We understand the importance of it. We support national health insurance, but we also give that word of caution because they are very, very expensive and need to be managed very, very carefully. And that was the ECCB Governor, Timothy Antoine. Media practitioners in St. Lucia are receiving training as part of a digital media series being coordinated by the British High Commission. Participants will benefit from hands-on mobile and digital solutions-based approaches to journalism over a two-day period. Resident British Commissioner Steve McCready says the training is important as new technologies are constantly being introduced to the field of journalism. So many young people today, this is how they get their news. They get their news on their mobile devices via the internet or via social media. And what the UK believes is important is that as many people as possible engage with the issues of the day. And that includes young people. Many of the big issues will affect them as they grow up and grow older and become the leaders of the country. So that is why we really wanted to work with the media here to help them to learn new skills to develop how to create content with real impact to reach that different demographic in terms of the way they get their news. The training allows participants to get a better understanding of mobile tools which can be used for multimedia content, storytelling, podcasting, photography, social media, investigative and entrepreneurial journalism. McCready says that having an effective media is important for democracy, not just in St. Lucia but across the globe. The more that the media is trained, the more skill the media has to be able to explain to the public what is happening, we think that is a very, very important element of democracy. The multi-country training series was held in eight countries across the eastern Caribbean and coincides with the opening of new British High Commission offices in Antigua, Barbuda, Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. And Steve is the NTN Nightly, we'll be right back. Welcome back and here's a look at what's happening to us weather-wise. Fair and breezy, becoming cloudy at times with some scattered showers. The Atlantic high pressure system will continue to generate moderate to brisk easterly winds and rough seas across the eastern Caribbean region. Patches of low level clouds moving with the wind flow will cause a few scattered showers over the region during the forecast period. The tide for Castries Harbor was high at 117pm and will be low again at 821pm. The tide for V4 Bay was high at 224pm and will be low again at 948pm. The seas locally rough with waves and swells 6 to 8 feet or 1.8 to 2.4 meters. Small craft operators and sea beavers are advised to exercise caution due to brisk winds and rough seas. The sun will rise Friday at 6.30am. And that brings us to the end of the NTN Nightly. Join us next time at 7pm with a repeat at 7am. You can also catch up with us anytime on the Solution Government Facebook page or YouTube channel. I'm Nisha Tross.