Government has engaged the University of the West Indies to do epidemiology modelling on COVID-19, and the results of the potential spread of the virus are troubling.
This disclosure was made today by Czar of Covid-19, Richard Carter, while speaking on VOB’s Down to Brass Tacks Call-in programme, moderated by David Ellis.
He warned that the numbers shown from the modelling were very scary and very concerning. “They are showing the potential for hundreds of deaths if we do not apply the discipline associated with physical distancing and applying the discipline of the protocols that we have been setting out.”
While pointing out that models were not predictors, the Covid-19 Czar said they are useful for giving a sense of what could potentially happen. Using the State of New York, United States of America, as an example of what could potentially happen, Mr. Carter said the number of cases had doubled in just over a week.
“So, that kind of exponential trajectory, is trajectory that we have seen played out time and time again all over the world. It is knowing what is ahead of us that if we don’t exercise discipline, that we have to take the measures now. One of the previous callers suggested that we should have given Barbadians a week, but we know that a day is causing a week to be lost, in terms of time, in terms of grappling with the epidemic [and] we have seen it repeatedly,” he cautioned.
Mr. Carter further warned: “We do not have a week to give to this epidemic because the consequences of being overrun, with the healthcare systems that we have, though they are good, they are not infinite, and we are seeing first world countries overrun in terms of their capacity. We are seeing New York … talking about six days left in terms of … ventilators and we are talking about a time when supply chains are cut off, which makes us even more vulnerable in terms of us getting in the supplies that are necessary to manage this.”