ST JOHN’S, Antigua, Wednesday April 1, 2020 – An 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew in Antigua and Barbuda is to be replaced by a one-week lockdown from midnight to help stem the spread of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) for which seven people in the twin-island nation have tested positive so far. Prime Minister Gaston Browne made the announcement in a virtual address to Parliament yesterday as he said that “the limited curfew is not working”. “The people are not taking the level of responsibility to contain the COVID virus,” he said. During the lockdown, supermarkets will remain open, Browne said, but only a few people will be allowed in those establishments at any given time. He also said the State of Emergency announced on March 25, which prohibited everybody but essential workers from working, has been extended to 60 days. “We will give further details on the policy as to exactly who could move, but in essence it gives a lockdown and we are asking people to stay at home in order to contain the spread of the virus,” the Prime Minister said. Browne warned that the country’s healthcare system could not cope with an influx of critically ill COVID-19 patients. “The spread of COVID does not happen in a linear way but exponentially,” he said, giving a scenario in which Antigua and Barbuda could end up with as many as 1,000 cases within a two-week period. “There is no way that we could adequately treat the number of individuals who would become critically ill…. The reality is we do not have enough ventilators.” Globally, there have been over 777,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including over 37,000 deaths.
Read more: http://www.caribbean360.com/news/covid-19-antigua-and-barbuda-joins-caribbean-countries-in-lockdown#ixzz6IMhlvbFfRelated Articles
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