 Welcome to NTN Nightly, I am Genelle Norville, this edition's top stories. St Lucia to introduce the COVID-19 Contact Tracing app, the citizen rejoins government in fighting the dengue virus, and a new project enhancing the skills of the labour forces launched. On Thursday, December 10, 2020, St Lucia recorded another COVID-related death. The individual is a 62-year-old male from the Cassius district, who had presented at the respiratory hospital as a critical patient and passed away while in care. He was one of three people whose test results for COVID-19 was confirmed positive from a batch of 143 samples. There were 114 negative results. This brings the number of COVID-19 related deaths to four. The total number of cases diagnosed in country to date is 274. On Thursday, the Ministry of Health also recorded seven COVID-19 recoveries. The total number of recoveries is now 184, bringing the number of active cases in country to 86. Meanwhile, as part of measures to manage and contain the spread of the novel coronavirus in country, the Governmental St Lucia is set to introduce a contact tracing app for nationals and visitors. Consultants on the project's inclusion graduate student and researcher at Harvard University, Khalil Louisi, says the app is not designed to invade privacy, not collect or transfer information on the users. It maintains a location log. All of the public places that you would have gone to over 14-day periods, a two-week period, it maintains all of those points and it saves it in your phone. No one has access to this information. Even if somebody goes into your phone, they cannot see all of the places that you visited, so it is completely private. If they went that one individual does test positive for COVID-19 or any infectious disease, really, they would choose to share that location log with the contact tracer. And the contact tracer would then be able to have a visual representation of all of the public places that that individual had gone to over the 14-day period. So it appears like, if you look at Google Maps, for instance, that's exactly what it looks like. The contact tracer has the choice to delete certain points if they don't think it's necessary. But what it does is it provides a mapping of the spread of the virus because if you have a number of people who tested positive for the infection and you have all of the location data, you can see those hot spots. Contact tracing is a standard public health strategy used to break the transmission chain and to contain the spread of infectious diseases. It involves tracing or actively searching for all contacts who may have been exposed to an infected individual. This process is very important in St. Lucia's fight against the spread of COVID-19. Surveillance officer Dr. Dana Gomez explains that the app will vastly improve the contact tracing process. There are some limitations to contact tracing and sometimes, people don't remember exactly where they've been, who they've been in contact with, who has visited them, some of the activities that they've been engaged in. And by using the app, we are the ones, the contact tracing team, who would be privy to the information that the confirmed case is giving us. Pretty much like what is happening now, but it's just going to help to juggle the memory and to help them because like I said, sometimes when you get the news, you just blank off. And you may not remember some of the places that you've been and what you've done in the past. So this is definitely going to help us. The information obtained by the app is only accessed if an individual has tested positive for COVID-19 and it is accessed by a contact tracing personnel. Principal Nursing Officer Julia Casius explains how the app aids in home quarantine as well. With the app, persons in terms of contact with other persons is very limited. So if one is placed on home quarantine, one is expected to remain within the confines of this room or the dwelling in which they're at. So we will not expect these persons to be moving around. So in that case, the app should not show you have been anywhere because you are supposed to be confined. So in that way, it puts a little less pressure on the ministry in that we know that this person is within home quarantine and they would not have been moving around where we would need to be doing that kind of contact tracing. The app called 758 Care Alert is expected to be available to the public in the coming weeks. In other COVID-19 monitoring developments, there has been a decrease in the rate of transmission of COVID-19 hair. Chief Medical Officer Dr Sharon Belmar George says the rate now at 2.3 is down from 3.0, which was registered in November. That decline has afforded a reduction in restrictions, which take effect December 15, 2020. However, the CMO calls for continued caution as the Christmas season will present unique challenges. When we did our assessment, we have over a thousand returning nationals coming in and also the increase in the visitor arrivals coming in during the month of December is also of concern to us. Given our capacity for government or institutional quarantine, it means we'll have an increased number of persons on home quarantine and given our history of managing home quarantine and the lack of compliance and adherence, this is one of the risks that we looked at in relation to the month of December for us in St. Lucia particularly. Measures to improve home quarantine mechanisms include more stringent requirements for approval and increased surveillance capacity to ensure compliance. We are supposed to receive the tracking devices this week. We did a pilot process on the first batch and it worked well for what we want to do and we are also doing the review of our first set of the bio-buttons that we have received right now. So we are hoping that by next week we can comment on the use of the electronic devices. The protocol enforcement officers appointed by the Royal St. Lucia Police Force will also be involved in monitoring these homes to ensure compliance. The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, NCPC, has taken a closer look at the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of the St. Lucia citizenry and on national productivity. Three local experts speak on the impact of the pandemic, the ensuing protocols and the coping skills individuals can employ to combat the mental and financial impact associated with COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic has generated tremendous anxiety, fear, apprehension and uncertainty among individuals in the St. Lucia society, the region and the wider world. The World Health Organization has acknowledged the important role mental health plays in achieving the global development goals. Patrick Farron, mental health counselor with the Employer Assistance Program of the Public Service said with many people losing their jobs and the uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring has the cumulative effect of creating mental health fallouts. And so people have difficulty coping, people have difficulty resolving, people are having more problems with domestic situations, family situations and we can understand why this is so because COVID-19 has brought a lot of new factors into our lives unpleasant factors and they all came crashing down. With the added pressure of homeschooling, dwindling household incomes and social distancing the counselor stated that people are wondering what in the world is happening as they scamper to understand their rapidly changing reality. I recommend that people develop their spiritual aspect of their life. Cynthia Alexander, who is an executive coach and facilitator is of the view that the mental stress brought about by this pandemic can be combated by focusing on one's spiritual and inner strength. She explained that some persons are experiencing what is called emotional labor. Emotional labor is really about suppressing your feelings. So what it does is you're actually putting a facade on, you're smiling when in fact you're feeling quite stressful yourself. And the term was normally related to people in the caring professions like social workers, nurses, carers, policemen, firemen where they had to deal with incidences and then they had to quickly snap out of it and suppress that feeling instead of expressing it. Now what I'm finding is now it's now akin to the service industry because you have people coming in fearful and they're angry. She added that individuals can maintain or increase the level of productivity if they view the current situation as less daunting while embracing opportunities to build their resilience. I prefer to believe that resilience is about bouncing forward because when you bounce forward it means that you are having to learn a whole new set of skills and also a different mindset so that you are more adaptable and able, yes, and flexible to manage constant change. Cosmetologist and personal development trainer Cecilia Fitz advises persons to tap into their inner selves and creativity to visualise themselves post-COVID while building meaningful and productive relationships with others. She also offered some practical advice on how to make the dollar stretch through better planning and conservation techniques. She said her freezer has now become her best friend. So, for example, I would have a lot of things perishing in my fridge like, you know, things like pumpkin and seasonings, green seasonings. These are things that I buy on a weekly basis and it accounts for a very large portion of my grocery bill. So what I began to do was began to preserve more food. So, for example, if I go to the supermarket and I buy spring onions, I would save the roots, I would plant it. So in about a few weeks I'll be able to harvest from that. What I use, I would actually cut it up and put them in ziplock bags and save them. So if I would buy a bag of beans and let us say I would boil a portion just when I need it, what I would do now is to boil the whole bag and to freeze the balance. So I find that saves me a lot on my gas bill. The mental health counselor also encouraged persons to think more positively during this pandemic by focusing on hope rather than gravitating to rumors and myths on how bad tomorrow might be. Look out for others. Treat others how we would like to be treated. There's no need for us to be stigmatizing persons, adding more pain or stress or distress into their lives. Everybody, we're going through this together. For the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, Glenn Simon reporting. The government and people of Taiwan has provided much-needed personal protection equipment to the office of the mayor of Castries through the twinning program with Taipei. Hema Di Mark reports. The government of Taiwan continues to aid with COVID-19 relief efforts in St. Lucia. Their latest contribution to the country is the donation of 24,000 face masks to the city of Castries. The donation from Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, also included US$3,000 to help with purchasing educational supplies for students in the Castries Basin. The donation was presented by Taiwanese Ambassador to St. Lucia His Excellency Peter Chen and was received by his Worship Mayor Princess and Francis. His Excellency Peter Chen says this donation strengthens the bond between Castries and the sister city of Taipei, Taiwan. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only presented unprecedented challenges to public health, but also caused devastating economic and social disruption. Families in Castries have also been impacted as other cities all over the world. For that, I would like to commend Mayor Francis for his care and actions to address these needs of the citizens to cope with this difficult time. And I would also especially like to thank Dr. Ker-Wenzel, the Mayor of Taipei City, for his positive response to the needs. Today's donation demonstrates the love from the citizens of Taiwan to the city of Castries and how they cherish the sister-city relationship. The Commissioner for the Mayor of Taipei's office responsible for external affairs, Tom Chu, also addressed the handing over ceremony held at the Taiwanese Embassy. As a former Ambassador to St. Lucia, he expresses fondness for the country and his elation to be able to facilitate such a significant donation. I can imagine how difficult the challenge is. Lucia is now facing. Taipei City, as a capital of Taiwan, has excellent records, both in epidemic prevention and economic growth. It has shared its successful epidemic prevention experience with all sister cities around the world, including Castries since April 21st of this year. Moreover, Mayor Ker-Wenzel of Taipei City decided to donate 24,000 masks and U.S. $3,000 for the cost of the statutory for the students of Castries. I'm very pleased to provide these resources in this donation as Commissioner of Mayor's Office for external affairs. His worship, Mayor Pritzler St. Francis, expressed deep gratitude for Taiwan's continued support and highlighted the timeliness of their latest gift to the country. Our donation this morning is very timely to help all of us to see how we could combat that COVID-19. We know now we are looking at a vaccine and I sincerely hope by next year we will be able to get rid of the vaccine and we get back to our normal life. I could assure you that we make extremely good use of it and I must say again, the people of Taiwan and our sister city has responded positively to the people of St. Lucia. The Government of Taiwan has donated 450,000 face masks to St. Lucia since April 2020 to assist with the protection of frontline workers against the COVID-19 pandemic from the Government Information Service. The threat of the dengue virus forges a communion among the Government of St. Lucia, the citizenry and local organizations. More in this report from Fernelle Neptune. The Ministry of Health, along with several stickholder organizations, recently held a clean-up campaign in the town of Grosely. The campaign's aim is to raise awareness of the dengue outbreak in the community while reducing the spread of the vector-borne disease. Assistant clerk of the Grosely Constituency Council, Kimberly McPhee, cites the recent rise in dengue infection rates as the catalyst for the initiative. We felt the need to address the situation by taking on a massive clean-up of areas that are prone to breathing grounds and illegal dumping of garbage. According to environmental health officer Charlotte Charles, epidemiological analysis indicates a significant number of cases in the town of Grosely. Charles disclosed the current education campaign will extend to several other communities on the island. We are hoping to replicate this very similar activity in other communities because, of course, I know that we have experienced a fall in dengue cases. However, there is always a possibility that we can see that very high resurgence or spiking cases again. So it is imperative that we attack the mosquitoes from its source, from the root of the problem, and to get rid of these active and potential mosquito-breeding sites. So we are looking to move into other communities to mobilize more of our solutions and to get rid of as much as we can these mosquito-breeding sites. The campaign also hopes to encourage inclusion residents to undertake the cleaning of their communities to hamper mosquito-breeding grounds. Reporting from the Communications Unit of the Ministry of Health and Wellness, I am Fidel Neptune. This is NTIA Knightly. Please stay with us. Welcome back. St. Lucia has launched a Human Capital Resilience Project with funding from the World Bank designed to enhance skills in the labour force as well as support the country's social protection system. The Human Capital Resilience Project is geared towards the improvement of skills relevant to St. Lucia's labour market demands and strengthening the social protection system through increasing resilience of the most vulnerable households to shocks. The project, which was officially launched on Tuesday, offers skills training, particularly to youth and women, and provide poor households with improved social protection coverage. Project Manager Dr. Rufina-Fedric Feliciae highlighted that the project embodies three different capacities in resilience, including absorption, adaptation and transformation. Teacher training and high-quality technical and vocational education and training will be offered at secondary schools and five other institutions of training and higher education. The National Skills Development Centre in SDC, the National Enrichment Learning Program, NEL, the Centre for Adolescent Renewal and Education Care, and the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College. Under Component 2, Improving Social Protection System, there will be increased coverage and improved efficiency, modernising and implementation and delivery systems of the public assistance programme and the could-may-simply-see programme. I must highlight that gender parity and persons with disabilities have been catered for in this project. Permanent Secretary in the Department of Education, Innovation and Gender Relations, Michelle Charles, explained that the project is one of the mechanisms for which the limitations of St. Lucia's human capital will be addressed. The Department of Education has proposed the establishment of a National Vocational Institute and is collaborating with the European Development Fund in that regard. The implementation of this project will place in sharp focus to critical areas that, when addressed, will have a profound positive impact on our people and contribute towards economic development. For the first components of strengthening technical vocational education and training, it is expected that the capacities within our various T-Vert institutions will be augmented and strengthened. This injection of resources will facilitate the development and implementation of the programmes necessary for the enhancing of skills-training offerings that are aligned with our industry needs. Component 1, which focuses on the promotion of more and higher quality technical and socio-emotional skills and the transformation of the T-Vert sector from its supply-driven system to a demand-driven system that responds to changing labour market conditions. Minister for Equity, Social Justice, Local Government and Empowerment, Honourable Leonard Montute, explained that the project will allow for the improvement of the social policy framework. We are presently working with the Caribbean Development Bank on the design of yet another social protection project which we expect to implement within the coming months. For us at the Ministry, this is significant as we now have a unique opportunity to leverage technical and financial resources towards a holistic review and complete overall of our social protection system. An endeavour that had been on our agenda for some time now. With much anticipation and great commitment, we therefore look forward to the end results showcasing a robust, shock-responsive, comprehensive and inclusive gender and child-sensitive social protection system capable of delivering in ways that not only allow us to meet the current needs of the poor and vulnerable but also to empower them and to build their capacities for self-advancing. The project will support the government's measures to increase job opportunities for youth and women by expanding the number and quality of technical and vocational education offerings and sponsor internships and job placements with the support from the private sector. Catherine Funk is the Acting Manager for the World Bank for the Caribbean. I also take this opportunity to compliment the Government of St. Lucia for their commitment for its undertaking in terms of structural reforms to strengthen fiscal sustainability, diversify the economy and enhance long-term resilience to shocks. In particular, the enactment of the public finance management and procurement acts and the commitment to implement a rules-based fiscal responsibility framework is credible as these will help economic resilience and facilitate recovery once this crisis abates. Once enacted, the legislations for implementing a collateral registry and an insolvency framework will improve financial access and liquidity for small and medium enterprises and will place St. Lucia as a pioneer country in the Eastern Caribbean region. The US $20 million operation is financed by the International Development Association, the concessional financing arm of the World Bank. The interest-free credit has a maturity of four years, a risk period of 10 years and no interest. From the Government Information Service, I am Janelle Norvell. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, Natural Resources and Cooperatives recently held the 2020-2021 Media Review. We get details in this report. The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, Natural Resources and Cooperatives 2020-2021 Media Review provides an opportunity for updates and feedback on work accomplished to date, as well as constructive criticism in areas where performance may be inadequate. Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries, Physical Planning, Natural Resources and Cooperatives, Honourably Zigel Joseph, during his address says the Government continues their commitment to assist farmers who have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Honourable Minister Joseph informs that the Government of St. Lucia recently approved the guarantee to receive the $7.2 million from the Government of the Republic of China, Taiwan. We have started in some small way meeting the commitments that we made as a potential support to COVID. And I want to say it again because I am sure I have been chastised as to the one point in $1,500 3 months, $500 each. I said that I believe is more in the interest of the department to see how we can support our farmers with inputs. The Agriculture Minister also underscores the importance of providing adequate information to the public in a timely fashion. What can we do as a government to increase the frequency of information that we are given to our officers be it fisheries, livestock, extended agriculture, forestry WRMA whatever it is we need to share information because you might have and I am putting my extension cap now I might go down to a farmer and he might want to know something about me. So our information should not only be on bananas or on the seven crops we should have wronged officers as far as information is concerned. The Minister for Agriculture expresses gratitude to the team leaders and staff of the Department of Agriculture fisheries natural resources and cooperatives for their continued efforts in ensuring the success of the agriculture sector. In unit of the Department of Agriculture I am Anisha Antoine reporting. Due to the large number of queries to the office of the Prime Minister regarding the upcoming holiday weekend the public is reminded that Sunday 13th December also known as National Day or St. Lucia Day is a bank holiday public holiday. Pursuant to the Bank Holiday Act cap 17.01 when a bank holiday falls on a Sunday the following Monday immediately next is deemed a holiday. Hence Monday 14th December 2020 is a bank holiday in St. Lucia. The office of the Prime Minister reminds all St. Lucia's to continue to observe all the COVID-19 protocols and wishes the nation a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend. That brings us to the end of NTN Nightly. Join us next time at 7pm with a repeat at 7am. You can also catch up with us any time on the St. Lucia Government Facebook page or YouTube channel. I am Janelle Norville.