Key points and live updates from the February 26, 2021 COVID management press conference featuring Attorney General Dale Marshall.
- The current directive ends February 28, 2021 at midnight.
- The new measures take effect from March 1, 2021.
- Shops and supermarkets will not be opened over the weekend.
- Those who opened their shops today, cannot do so tomorrow.
- The COVID-19 Unit will be out monitoring these things
- There is no national Stay at Home weekend as we did last weekend.
- Public markets and fish markets can reopen.
- Restaurants will not be allowed in-house dining.
- Bars are not allowed to open.
- Supermarkets, minimarts, rum shops can operate on a daily basis.
- Rum shop operators can serve customers, but they have to collect and leave.
- Wayside vendors can operate.
- No wayside vending on the hard shoulder of the ABC Highway except for coconut vendors.
- The Attorney General appealed to people to follow the protocols.
- The COVID-19 Unit will be out in force for the next two weeks.
- The resources are being supplemented to monitor how Barbadians behave.
- Bread vans can operate.
- Insurance Companies cannot reopen as yet.
- Markets/minimarts will be closed on Sundays.
- Sports: The decision at this time is there will be no sporting activity.
- Any entity that benefits from a subsidy is not allowed to open.
- They will continue to benefit from the subsidy.
- Shops would stop benefitting from the subsidy as they will be allowed to reopen.
- We are satisfied Barbadians were compliant under the current directive over the last 11 days.
Dr Anton Best, senior medical officer
- We pay attention to certain indices, including the positivity rate.
- The rate was rising and peaked around mid-February.
- Since then it has been decreasing.
- The pause achieved the objective from a public health objective.
- We needed time to do the Seek and Save programme
- We also needed to continue with contact tracing.
- We needed to stop the rise in the COVID-19.
- The benchmark we are looking at for the positivity rate is under five per cent.
- Corrected earlier statement that positivity rate was five per cent not 6 per cent.
