With the declaration of a state of emergency last night during the Prime Minister’s online press briefing the island is on lockdown 24/7, effectively a police state for two weeks. While the purpose of this shutdown is clearly understood, implementing an island-wide testing program on the island as well would have served an even greater purpose and would have effectively helped to corner and isolate the virus once and for all. Our neighboring island St. Barths understands that as well apparently and they will be testing the entire population. We should be doing the same as well. Time to take a look at what our neighbor is doing….

St. Barths is testing the entire population!

The territorial council in St. Barths held an emergency meeting on Saturday, April 4, at 10am, to release two million euros to finance the implementation of a total screening of the population for COVID-19. The entire population consists of a little less than 10,000 people. The costs of this unique operation are one million euros for investment in rapid testing machines and another million euros in the execution of the testing. The Collectivite will do away with the rules of public procurement and call on two local companies, Solutech and the Bio Pôle Antilles laboratory, to execute this project, citing the pressing urgency of the situation.

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