FLORIDA , United States (CMC) — The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) has upgraded the region’s risk of the COVID-19 virus from “low” to “moderate-high” in light of the increased of the importation of the virus to the region.

According to CARPHA’s executive director, Dr Joy St John, health authorities of member states must shift their mindset from preparedness to readiness and rapid response and continue to do all that is necessary to strengthen their capacity to respond to possible importation of cases.

Based on this upgrade stakeholders in the regional tourism and health sectors are in the process of implementing readiness and response measures to prevent and contain the virus.

The recently established COVID-19 Caribbean Tourism Task Force, in a statement issued by the leaders of member organisations, indicated that a memorandum of understanding (MOU) has been agreed upon by the organisations to foster closer collaboration.

“Recognising the essential need to safeguard the health and safety of residents and visitors to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 threat to the Caribbean; and further recognising the importance of building upon the collaborative efforts which are already under way, and the need to pool organisational resources to do so; we have agreed to formalise our efforts and messaging through the establishment of the COVID-19 Caribbean Tourism Task Force (CCTTF),” the MOU reads.

The organisations acknowledged concerns about the high level of misunderstanding about the virus which has elevated the panic at the global level and resulted in the dissemination of a high level of misinformation.

The CCTTF will focus on raising awareness and sharing accurate information; strengthening monitoring at airports, seaports, and hotels and accommodations; improving coordination among stakeholder organisations and locally between tourism and health officials; sharing best practices; training, education and capacity building; and conducting tourism impact research.

“Tourism is the lifeblood of the Caribbean so we’ve come together as organisations already engaged in readiness programmes to pool resources so we can ensure the people of our region, and our visitors, remain safe from this viral threat,” read the task force’s statement, which adds “our ability to quickly contain any outbreak will be determined by how efficiently we can pool information and capacities – this agreement allows us to plan for an emergency and move our resources rapidly.”

Dr Lisa Indar, CARPHA’s assistant director for the Surveillance, Disease Prevention & Control Division, explained that the organisations already collaborate, but in view of the spread of the virus in other regions, CARPHA and other task force organisations wanted to proactively solidify cooperation and ensure the task force had what it needed to keep COVID-19 from threatening the health of residents and visitors and the economies of the Caribbean.

The establishment of the Caribbean COVID-19 Tourism Task Force follows a Special Emergency Meeting of the Caricom Heads of Government with health and tourism officials and cruise associations in Barbados last weekend, where they agreed to set up a regional protocol with the cruise industry.

As an immediate proactive measure to help fight the importation and spread of this novel viral illness, the CCTTF is urging hotel and tourism accommodation providers to register for CARPHA’s Tourism Health Information System (THiS), which was developed several years ago to provide support information, and to help identify and confidentially manage early warning symptoms by employees and guests in a rapid manner.