St Lucia ranked no.1 in Caribbean for COVID-19 response

Minister of Health Mary Isaac is celebrating a recent ranking of Saint Lucia as number 1 in the Caribbean for its response to the coronavirus.

MJS & Associates, a healthcare consulting company, released a chart that shows that St Lucia has the lowest number of COVID-19 cases in the region with just 1.4 per 10,000 people.

The chart shows Curacao and Anguilla tied for second with 1.99. On the other end of the spectrum, Aruba is listed as having the worst outcome with 92.43 cases per 10,000 people.

Minister Isaac told reporters on Monday, "This is quite an achievement to say that all the measures that we took, which we believed were the necessary measures to ensure that we kept our people safe, these measures have worked in our favour, we give God all the glory."

"Thank you very much to all of our St Lucian people who have contributed in one way or another towards this magnificent accomplishment," Isaac added.

Issac also said that this does not mean that St Lucia is out of the woods and that since our borders are open, especially to the United States and the United Kingdom, we must maintain vigilance.

According to Isaac, "I want to send out a word of caution to those people who encourage people who are coming in through the back door, especially from our neighbouring land of Martinique. This is one of our greatest threats to us right now, people sneaking into the country without being tested who we are not aware c forming and they are amongst our people here."

Isaac also cautioned people who are not respecting the protocols such as those having big parties and those not wearing masks. She encouraged persons to report those who break the protocols to the authorities.

The island to date has recorded 25 cases with no fatalities and a 100% recovery rate.

There are currently over 21.9 million confirmed cases in 213 countries and territories.

Over 774,000 people have died worldwide so far from the COVID-19 outbreak as of August 17, 2020.