Vaccinated visitors will be welcome to Barbados under a new public health protocol from May 8.
Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley said yesterday the decision was one backed by science, and based on a combination of the country’s decreasing positivity rate of COVID-19, continuation of the National Vaccine Programme, and its improved capacity to do more testing if required.
In a nationally televised address, she said it was important the country got its economic engines turning again, and there was no better place to start than with its biggest income earner, tourism.
“That thing that sustains a large part, 45 per of our economic activity, is tourism. That cannot remain shut down and closed, particularly because since the beginning of this year there has been a large number of persons in our traditional source markets who have been vaccinated, and who have expressed a determination to travel later in this year,” Mottley said.
She added that meetings were held with the Social Partnership, Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners, Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc., University of the West Indies and stakeholders in the hotel industry to determine what number of arrivals Barbados could control, contain and manage under a new protocol regime. (BA)
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