The Upper House is currently debating the Estimates 2020 – 2021. Debating is a strange word given the fact the Barbados Labour Party won all the seats in parliament 30 to 0. A wart of the government system.
The 2020 -2021 Draft Estimates document
Follow the debate from 10AM of Parliament TV.
And for the last time retailers are following the instruction from the Central Bank of Barbados when dealing with cash purchases. The slur you are making on retailers is out of place appallingly ignorant.
The capital market for those ‘concessionary’ lenders is international. I do not know exactly how they assign rates or if they ‘sub-contract’ loans. My observation was merely that 4.75% is no bargoon. Then again, the GoB was not ‘without risk’ at the time of negotiation either. You note the GoB had second party guarantors on some loans, including the Cdn Gov.
Shoutout to Walter Blackman!
The blog is poorer for the erudite submissions missing on matters of this kind.
If we use the Swiss loan rate as a benchmark with the floating rate tied to the credit rating? The government will also shout loudly about the hurricane clause. Did we ever think to be in this dark place 50 years on from 1966? This is the ROI on the investment in education?
#wth
RE CELEB PILGRIM AKA “GOEBBELS”, cpilgrimeaqaolcom February 27, 2020 1:52 PM
IF CUBA HEALTH CARE IS SO GREAT WHY ARE THEIR DOCTORS PAID SO POORLY … CUBA’S MONTHLY MINIMUM WAGE IS AROUND $25, RISING TO AROUND $50 FOR DOCTORS…HOW DO YOU THINK A BERNIE’S SOCIALIST / COMMUNIST MEDICARE WOULD WORK OUT FOR ALL AMERICANS…QUITE EASY ACCORDING TO BLOOMBERG…
Medicare for all means the government sets the guidelines for treatment.. How do you minimize the cost of treatment? Simple! Quit supplying treatment to those who need it most…
Here you have the mind of a sociopath saying out loud the ONLY way a purely government-controlled socialist medical program can financially survive. Of course the others know it, but Bloomberg was the only one stupid enough to say it….
Medical costs increase proportionately with age… Look at the hell veterans go through for medical treatment controlled by our government. Look how many die while waiting to see a doctor… Now imagine that times 1,000….
In the eyes of many it becomes like triage… Why spend the money on someone old? Let them die and we save on medical costs and we don’t have to pay them Social Security either… It’s a win, win… UNLESS, you or someone you love is left to die untreated so someone else can save a couple bucks…
WELCOME TO THE ‘NEW’ OR RATHER ‘NEWLY EXPOSED’ DEMOCRAT PARTY…
HOW DOCTORS BECAME CUBA’S BIGGEST EXPORT
Cuban doctors stationed in Brazil packed up their bags and went home, less than two weeks after their government in Havana ordered an end to their participation in the country’s More Doctors program on Nov. 14 2018.
The program, which bolsters healthcare provision in poor and rural communities, had fallen foul of an ideological rift between Cuba’s communist government and Brazil’s Conservative president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro. Cuba said their decision was the result of “offensive and threatening” comments by Bolsonaro. HE HAD CALLED THE DOCTORS, WHO MUST SEND MOST OF THEIR SALARY TO THEIR COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT, “CUBAN SLAVES” AND SAID THEIR PRESENCE IN BRAZIL WAS “FEEDING THE CUBAN DICTATORSHIP.” Around 1,300 of Brazil’s 8,300 Cuban doctors have already left, according to a spokesman for the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the U.N. agency which oversees the program.
THE POLITICAL SPAT WAS AN UNPRECEDENTED BLOW TO CUBA’S MOST LUCRATIVE EXPORT: NOT TOBACCO OR SUGAR, BUT DOCTORS. LEASING HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS TO FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS BRINGS IN AROUND $11 BILLION EACH YEAR, MAKING IT A BIGGER SOURCE OF REVENUE THAN THE CARIBBEAN ISLAND’S TOURISM INDUSTRY.
WHAT’S IT LIKE FOR THE DOCTORS?
Where Cuba gets badly needed cash and foreign countries get badly needed medical expertise, the doctors themselves have an equally clear incentive to work abroad. Cuba’s monthly minimum wage is around $25, rising to around $50 for doctors. IN BRAZIL, EVEN WITH THE CUBAN GOVERNMENT TAKING MOST OF THEIR SALARY, they were still getting about $1000 a month, a life-changing sum for their families.
“GOEBBELS” FREEDOM SUGGESTS THAT YOU GO WORK IN CUBA I HEAR THEY PAY PLENTY PESOS FOR DEMOCRAT SOCIALIST LAWYERS IN SHEEP CLOTHING!
February 27, 2020 3:21 PM
“Shoutout to Walter Blackman!”
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Yeah, Wally, where art thou?
You are greatly missed, even by your octogenarian “frenemy” Piece who was only recently pining over you since he found GP No.2 to be nothing but a windup toy of a windbag.
@ David
About five weeks ago, I asked why the Foreign Affairs minister was not higher profiled and you repeated some nonsense in your usual apologetic fashion.
Now you are basically asking the same question.
Cite the comment William or hush.
@ David February 27, 2020 2:30 PM
“If BERT is meeting all the targets set what is there to care about SOEs?”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SOEs are at the ‘heart’ of the cause of the endemic fiscal disease plaguing Barbados.
The Bajan economy does not require any more band aids but a root and branch operation to remove the cancerous cells eroding its economic walls.
If BERT behaves like a general physician addressing, superficially, only the symptoms instead of being the surgeon prepared to go the bowels of the problems then Barbados is clearly one foot in the grave of economic failure.
SOE’s were created to provide ‘public goods’ to the citizens at the most cost effective means; not to be perpetual unproductive parasites fleecing the forex-earning sectors of the economy.
The current crop of policymakers would be doing their country and future generations a devastating injustice should they avoid this alternative course of action to a massive devaluation of the Bajan Mickey mouse currency resulting in a rather dystopian future for the Bajan economy cum society.
@ William
Today, the president held a press conference on the coronavirus issue. Why she chose to chair the meeting is highly questionable, apart from an obsession with publicity and a lack of confidence in her ministers and senior technocrats.
Such a meeting should have been chaired by the minister of health, surrounded by his health technocrats to answer questions.
Instead what we had were senior ministers around her like lap dogs. And they appear to like it.
(Quote):
The discussion was not about a bottle of rum at $39.99, nor a bag of eddoes, nor was it about one cent in change. It was about a PRINCIPLE and treating customers fairly. (Unquote).
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That might just be too high a helicopter view of the matter for those pedestrian (SIM) fellas to see from.
@ Miller February 27, 2020 4:36 PM
Miller,
In the beginning we were told that we would reform the SOE with BERT. But I haven’t heard anything about that for a long time. Does this mean that reactionary Marxists have decided behind the back of our Most Honourable Prime Minister to continue to feed the many lazy quitters in the SOEs at the taxpayer’s expense? Only a small part of the SOEs is even viable through privatization. The rest has to be liquidated, the so-called labour force is free to emigrate to Greater Guyana.
Alternatively, the government should devalue the cursed Barbados Dollar, which has been hanging around our necks like a heavy millstone for decades.
We must finally poke open the socialist sore called planned economy and welfare state that Barrow caused to our Goddess Bim in his rage for independence. Our Most Honourable Prime Minister now needs our collective support against secret admirer of the false god Barrow.
@HA
the ‘ethical’ response, as some around here do (we also abolished the cent), post dual prices, one if paying by card, and another if paying by cash. So the item would be $39.99 by card, $40.00 by cash. The $39.99 is many times the size of the $40 on the shelf sticker.
The marketers get their bang, and the customer gets accuracy. And choice.
@Baje February 27, 2020 2:26 AM “I HAVE SPOKEN MANY TIMES ON BU ON THE OPPORTUNITIES OUTSIDE OF BARBADOS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE AND CASTIGATED BY THE USUAL SUSPECTS WHO SPEW BULLSHIT REGULARLY ON BU. NOW IT IS SPOKEN DURING THE ESTIMATES BY THE SAME BLP MINISTERS THE FOOLS ELECT NOW BEGGING THE US EMBASSY ASSISTANCE WITH FINDING EMPLOYMENT IN THE USA FOR UNEMPLOYED BAJANS.
WELL WELL WELL.”
Before you sprain you hand patting yourself on the back, please read a little history.
Barbados was deliberately over populated in order to provide labor for the sugar industry. That worked very well for the British colonial masters who owned the sugar industry. It did not work so well for the enslaved people or their descendants.
My family is a perfectly ordinary, perfectly typical Bajan family.
On my mother’s side of the family my grandmother’s siblings, all born before 1886 had to migrate to find work. My great aunt went to Brazil to work on the railways, my great uncle to Panama to work on the Canal, another great uncle to New Jersey where he trained and worked as a florist. My grandmother’s husband also worked on the Canal. In the 20th century one uncle worked as a migrant laborer cutting cane in Florida, three of my siblings went to England, one to the United States and three to Canada, in this generation two nephews, two nieces and one of my children have also migrated. Another nephew has worked for a year or two in England which also engaging in professional training.
It is NOT the BLP’s fault.
It is NOT the DLP’s fault.
It is NOT the PdP’s fault.
It is NOT the fault of Solutions Barbados
It is NOT post Independence incompetence.
it is NOT the fault of the people who migrate.
it is NOT the fault of the people who stay.
It is long past time that we stop cussing each other for the oftentimes very difficult decisions that we have made in the past, are making now, and without a doubt will also have to make in the future.
No Bajans are not lazy.
Bajans are not incompetent.
For hundreds of years we Bajans have done what we have to do to ensure that our families are fed, sheltered, clothed educated, and have access to health care.
If we are honest with ourselves we would ALL admit that my family’s migrant journeys are just the same as your family’s migrant journeys.
@Tron
you amaze me.
Magnificent Mia is the boss. No reactionary Marxists can do anything. Did you listen to the sleep inducing estimate debates, she knows about everything. It was the most OnHerEbble PM who proclaimed default and restructure, to avoid Devaluation.
You seem to idolize the person, but not her stated policies.
What they call Covid-19 is the miracle she needed. By the time October rolls around, the ‘shock’ will be such she will be sans choix, and will have to cut some SOE’s, but she can use the estimates/budgets to prove, it was not her intent. She got hurricane insurance but not global health insurance?
Oh yes, I almost forgot. My own father, before my birth migrated to Trinidad where the work was plentiful, and the pay was better. Did he want to do it? Perhaps not; and judging by the fact that 6 children were conceived by my mother in the 9 years and 3 months after he returned tells me that he would rather have kept company with his beautiful young wife and the two children who had already been born.
But he like many other Bajan men and women, LIKE MANY OF YOU he did what he had to do to ensure the survival of his family.
@Hal Austin February 27, 2020 3:14 PM “By the way, since 2007/8, ethics is now the most popular subject at business schools.”
So?
Are you suggesting that the ethics which we learned at our mummy’s knees BEFORE we started elementary school, now needs to be taught at the post graduate level in the place where you live?
What have the mummies been doing? They must be very, very, incompetent.
Very sensible letter in today’s Nation about the 11+. The writer Nailah Robinson is a Barbados scholar, Harvard grad etc.
@NorthernObserver February 27, 2020 6:55 PM
Our leader will listen to kind words much more than personal criticism. Why blaming her for half a century of socialism in Barbados?
As Goddess Corona raises her deadly pale head across the globe, Goddess Bim may be physically spared, but her pockets will empty over the next few months.
We now have a one-party state. Now is the time to act like one. One leader, one party, one people. In short, Barbados.
@ Silly Woman February 27, 2020 7:09 PM
“Are you suggesting that the ethics which we learned at our mummy’s knees BEFORE we started elementary school, now needs to be taught at the post graduate level in the place where you live?”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Can you see clearly now that there is No ‘do-or-die’ reason for men, genetically-prone to violence, to be around to be ‘unwanted’ examples of both violent and unethical behviours like shoplifting and white collar sins.
Many ‘strong’ women have raised socially successful and morally upright children (both boys and girls) without their biological father(s) being around to be the hands at the moral steering wheel.
Females by their very nature are not only biologically superior but also both psychologically and morally stronger than males.
‘The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world’.
@ Hal
I guess folks prefer to hear from the PM when it’s a subject such as this.
Don’t forget Stuart refused to talk and paid a deservedly high price.
NO
Natural disaster clause Not Hurricane clause
How was the woman being treated unfairly when this type of transaction was the kas of the land for approx 6 years
And is a Copy of what goes on in canada
Bare BS cause the asses dont want to admit their ignorance/wrong
Law of the land
@R.G.
come on. It works both ways?
If a price is 39.99, the books record 39.99, but the cashier float is increased by $0.01, as the customer pays $40. If the price is $40.02, the books record 40.02, but the cashier float is now decreased by 2 cents, as the customers pays $40. At the end of most shifts, with thousands of transactions, the float is rarely off by more than a few cents.
If it costs a country 175 cents to acquire 100 cents in coin, keeping the cent makes no sense, {Quote}
@ NorthernObserver
You should tell that to Baje.
He was the one who talked about money stolen from customers. I just illustrated, using the same method of calculation he used, that the transaction does work both ways and at the end of the day, things even out, that’s all.
All of a sudden now, talking about this foolishness is an outcome of learning by rote and some other irrelevant foolish talk about philosophers being celebrated. Just like the irrelevant foolishness about English.
@R.G.
come on. It works both ways?
If a price is 39.99, the books record 39.99, but the cashier float is increased by $0.01, as the customer pays $40. If the price is $40.02, the books record 40.02, but the cashier float is now decreased by 2 cents, as the customers pays $40. At the end of most shifts, with thousands of transactions, the float is rarely off by more than a few cents.
If it costs a country 175 cents to acquire 100 cents in coin, keeping the cent makes no sense, {Quote}
@ NorthernObserver
You should tell that to Baje.
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YOU DON’T HAVE TO TELL ME SHIT.
THE DISCUSSION WAS INITIALLY ABOUT AN ITEM OR ANY ITEM BEING SOLD ENDING WITH .99 CENTS IN THIS CASE 39.99
YOU CHOOSE TO BRING IN THE EQUATION 40.02.
I CAN BET ANY AMOUNT MASSEY OR NO SHOP RETAILER IN BARBADOS SELLS ANYTHING FOR .01 or .02 AS IN BOTH CASES THEY WOULD HAVE TO REVISE DOWN TAKING A LOSS OR FOR THAT MATTER 96 OR 97 cents..
MY POINT WE ARE DEALING WITH A COMPANY WHO DOES MANY MANY TRANSACTION YEARLY WHICH ADDS UP.
I AGREE WITH HAL AND MILLER IT IS UNETHICAL AND DISHONEST CHEATING THE LADY AND ANYONE ELSE.
IT IS THE PRINCIPAL AND NOT THE AMOUNT WHICH IS THE ISSUE
THE HYPOCRISY IS YOU LOCALS WOULD KILL YOUR OWN BLACK POOR BROTHER FOR A SALT BREAD OR SOME OTHER FRIVOLOUS ITEM FOR THEFT.
It would be interesting to see if- in the ‘darkening’ light of the growing impact of the Covid-19 on a number of economies, financial markets and the international travel market- the Guv of the Central Bank, in a show of professional gravitas, would be prepared to adjust his projected growth figures just as the IMF is about to do for the world economy.
With the world on the verge of a probable pandemic on its hands would the financial gurus in the government be prepared to adjust the recently-laid Estimates to reflect more realistic revenue/income outcomes in light of the possible significant negative impact on the country’s main forex earning generator of tourism which is based primarily on international travel?
@Miller
His next quarter delivery should reveal if the gravitas exist.
The 2012 federal budget states: “The government expects that businesses will apply rounding for cash transactions in a fair and transparent manner.”
The rounding will not be done on single items but on the total bill of sale. If the price ends in a one, two, six, or seven it gets rounded down to 0 or 5; and rounded up if it ends in three, four, eight or nine.
Businesses will not need to adjust their cash registers.
What about the sales tax and the GST/HST?
They won’t make a difference. The government wants the rounding done on cash transactions only after the taxes have been added to the sub-total.
What about non-cash sales?
Cheques, credit and debit cards and electronic transactions will continue to be settled to the cent.
What’s a penny worth?
The government says it costs 1.6 cents to produce each penny.
IT IS A LEGAL AND FAIR WAY OF CONDUCTING BUSINESS IN CANADA
IN BARBADOS IT IS ROBBING AND UNETHNICAL (THE BRITBAJAN CONDITION?)
@baje
again you are wrong
if the woman had purchased another item/s that brought her total to end in .01 0r .02 then the total would have been rounded down to .00
is that being unfair and unethnical also?
when the woman left the store without paying the .01 or .02 would she be stealing, unethnical. dishonest etc?
No it would be /was a fair and legal transaction in both Barbados and Canada
@ Miller February 28, 2020 7:44 AM
Exactly! Our Most Honourable Prime Minister must finally declare martial law. The world is in turmoil. On the many screens in front of me all lines go steeply down. Red lights, where I look on all our markets, where the tourists come from: USA, UK, China, Germany and many more.
And what are the native masses doing? They don’t want to work at COWs plantation, but demand an excessive wage hike despite lack of productivity. And what are the apologists for Barrow’s rotten welfare state doing? All they want is more welfare spending. As Marx said somehow, welfare is the people’s new opium.
Seriously, what we need now is an urgent budget adjustment and emergency measures. I therefore propose the following:
Increase the working week for lazy civil servants to 50 hours, retirement at 72 and a permanent 20% pay cut.
For the private sector, 15% pay cut.
Reduction of income tax and especially the hated property tax to regain the confidence of international investors.
Temporary ban on all demonstrations and unions.
Privatisation or liquidation of all SOEs.
Devaluation of the BBD by 50 – 75 per cent to a new stable level appropriate to the low productivity of the islanders.
But we all know that Barbados is more likely to sink than to undergo such grand structural reforms. And why is that? We need a scapegoat now … Because some Marxist advisors to the government are deceiving our Most Honourable Prime Minister, her Honourable Cabinet Ministers and the people. It would not surprise me if these shadow minions were preparing to overthrow the government and replace it with a regime headed by Chris Sinckler. I therefore express my full confidence in our government of national unity.
@Freedom Crier
“Socialism is a scare word they’ve hurled at every advance the people have made. Socialism is what they called public power, social security, deposit insurance, and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for anything that helps all people.”
—Harry Truman, 1952
https://barbadostoday.bb/2020/02/28/estimates-offer-no-hope-says-opposition/
according to the opposition spokewoman, we are saving 700M in the first year of the debt restructuring
According to the junior FM
the government advisor
the pm
Carla D – the economist from trini
the CDB or was it the IDB – think it was CDB
all seem to be in this ballpark.
Only the shopkeeper/ BU official opposition leader seem to crunch different numbers
As expressed earlier, Ihttps://barbadostoday.bb/2020/02/28/estimates-offer-no-hope-says-opposition/MO it saved the Barbados economy more than 1B – —way more!
Wuh Loss.
I hope that Barbados retains an achievement test for Maths and English. Even with these in place, too many of us fail in the correct use of them.
Vincent Codrington
In reading a lot of stupid shite you write on BU I doubt you would pass the Maths and English achievement test you propose in Barbados.
Straughn needs to answer for “misleading” the public.
Sinckler was castigated for a minor mistake.
Straughn is either grossly incompetent or a terrible liar or both. Either way he has no business representing the people.
He also does not understand VAT
Hence the reason Dr. Mascoll appeared on VOB after Straughn a couple weeks ago.
@ miller
Travel stocks are already starting to soften and the Dow is posting major losses already. This mean the average investor is already taking a hit on his portfolio. This is the same person we expect to see on our cruise ship or at our hotels.
The big issue though is the Japan Olympics. Can you begin to imagine the effect a cancelled Olympics will have on Japan’s economy? That alone would trigger a recession there. Add that to reduce travel and global contraction and you have the perfect economic storm brewing.
It is time to declare martial law and seal off our beloved island. When I look at the obesity of the population, we can easily survive three months without food imports.
Lock all steel gates in the gated communities, pull up the barbed wire and activate the electric fence. Time to retreat to your own swimming pool with a glass of Champagne.
@John A
Based on your last comment how could Barbados have mitigated? Is it too late?
@Baje
you are correct, no retailer will price anything at .01 or .02.
read john2February 28, 2020 8:49 AM
You are merely stirring an empty pot, for the sake of echoing “the small man get unfair” and “you peeple too stupid”. Which is by far the most popular refrain on BU. Especially if one can concoct it to appear the big man is a minority, and the small man is a poor black man, and/or, it can be sold as black on black maliciousness.
The principle you are attempting to hammer down, is the locals are stupid and don’t know what they are doing, nor even appreciate when they are mistreating each other. Which is exactly why many don’t care for those Bajans who ‘come from away’.
@ David.
There is little we can do. I heard the PM speaking on the virus and I found she spoke well and was frank. I think we have to now turn the discussion to what we can do should a short fall in revenue occur on the tourism side. Wouldn’t it be nice if at times like this we didn’t have a one leg economy?
Was glad to also hear yesterday 2 persons on the opposition side speak to the need for an urgent growth plan.
@John A
Agree, an overdue discussion. Sometimes a disaster can force change. This blogmaster hopes that the economic challenges would have forced it but it is looking more of the same read trying to squeeze all we can from the entrenched economic model.
The principle you are attempting to hammer down, is the locals are stupid and don’t know what they are doing, nor even appreciate when they are mistreating each other. Which is exactly why many don’t care for those Bajans who ‘come from away’.
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WHERE DID THIS BULLOCKS COME FROM?
I HAVE NEVER SAID THE LOCALS ARE STUPID AND PLACED EVERYONE IN THE SAME BOX.
WHAT I SAY MOST ARE GULLIBLE AND GIVE THE WHITE MAN, POLITICIANS AND OTHERS NOT LIKE THEM A PASS WHILST KILLING EACH OTHER FOR LITTLE TO NOTHING WITH GLEE.
HOWEVER THEY ARE SEVERAL WHO FREQUENT BU RELIGIOUSLY THAT WALLOW IN A LOT OF NONSENSE TO DEFEND THE INDEFENSIBLE..
I DON’T SPEAK FOR ANYONE HOWEVER I WOULD BE STUPID TO CARE WHETHER A LOCAL LIKES ME OR NOT COMING FROM ABROAD SINCE I AM VERY HAPPY WITH MY FORTUNES IN LIFE AND NOT HAVE TO BE AMONG THE BACKWARDNESS TAKING PLACE ON THE ISLAND PASSING FOR NORMALCY.
@ John2
To continue this useless ‘discussion,’ ‘is an exercise in futility.’
However, since you provided BU with information relative to a SIMILAR situation of ’rounding up or down’ that OCCURS in CANADA…………..
One guy who describes Barbados as a “cesspool of an island so full of monkeys with small island mentalities,” and keeps reminding us about his success in the US, (PERHAPS MORE SO TO CONVINCE HIMSELF he IS successful), would probably ‘say’ you wrote that “bullshit to justify the fleecing and dishonesty happening in Bim,”
But, on the other hand, he may probably exempt you from the category of “like a few others on BU (that) use their PERSONAL LIMITED EXPOSURE to show your ass,” SIMPLY because you USED a ‘big country’ like CANADA as an EXAMPLE, rather than making any references to the system being used in OTHER Caribbean islands. (I made that mistake).
As time goes by, these guys keep exposing themselves that although they live in the ‘big countries,’ they’re just as Bajan as we are, with similar short-comings and are viewed by their hosts as second rate lawyers, bookkeepers and journalists………
………….. while also revealing “appalling ignorance” is not descriptive of those who don’t always agree with them, but demonstrates at some point in time, it has been distributed equally among us
Today, the president held a press conference on the coronavirus issue. Why she chose to chair the meeting is highly questionable, apart from an obsession with publicity and a lack of confidence in her ministers and senior technocrats.
Such a meeting should have been chaired by the minister of health, surrounded by his health technocrats to answer questions.
Instead what we had were senior ministers around her like lap dogs. And they appear to like it.
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THIS REMINDS ME OF THE NATALIE CHRICHLOW PRESS CONFERENCE THESE GUYS WILL DO NOTHING TO HIDE BEHIND LIES AND FALSE INFORMATION TO KEEP VISITORS COMING.
THERE IS NOW A CONFIRMED CASE IN CALIFORNIA WHERE A WOMAN had not traveled to China and had not been in contact with anyone known to be infected.
ALSO MANY TESTING KITS HAVE TURNED OUT TO BE FLAWED SENT BY CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL (CDC) TO HOSPITALS IN THE US AND ELSEWHERE FOR TESTING SUSPECTED INDIVIDUALS.
SO HOW CAN THESE “PROFESSIONALS” REALLY SPEAK WITH 100% ACCURACY TO WHETHER SOMEONE IS INFECTED IN BARBADOS OR NOT JUST TO PROTECT TOURIST NUMBERS?
Coronavirus Diagnosis in California Highlights Testing Flaws
Already in deep distress, the patient was rushed last week to a hospital in Northern California, severely ill and unable to breathe on her own.
Doctors at the University of California, Davis Medical Center, near Sacramento, provided the woman with critical care but also considered an unlikely diagnosis: infection with the coronavirus.
Hospital administrators said they immediately requested diagnostic testing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but the procedure was not carried out because the case did not qualify under strict federal criteria: She had not traveled to China and had not been in contact with anyone known to be infected.
The announcement on Wednesday that the woman was indeed infected left health officials in California searching for people she may have exposed to the virus and testing the medical workers who have treated her. The case has raised difficult questions about whom to test and whether the nation is prepared to keep the virus under control.
The California woman’s case may also offer the first indication that the virus has spread beyond Americans who had traveled outside the country, or had contact with someone who had.
Even before the announcement on Wednesday, frustration had been mounting among health providers and medical experts that the agency was testing too few Americans, which may slow preparations for an outbreak and may obscure the scope of infections.
“I think the diagnostic issue is the single most important thing that keeps me up at night right now,” said Lauren Sauer, director of operations at the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response in Baltimore.
CDC officials said on Thursday that they had been unaware that doctors in California made an urgent appeal for diagnostic testing of the woman. But by the end of the day, the agency had revised and broadened its testing criteria, adding to the number of Americans who qualify.
In California, health officials are tracing close contacts of the woman, who lives in Solano County but has not otherwise been identified. Health care workers who have treated her are being monitored for the infection, and some employees at the medical center have been told to stay home.
Officials are bracing for a larger outbreak in Northern California. “There’s almost assuredly going to be a significant number of people testing positive,” said Dr. Peter L. Beilenson, the director of Sacramento County’s Department of Health Services.
The case has heightened concerns about the nation’s ability to test large numbers of people. Only the CDC performs the tests that confirm a novel coronavirus diagnosis, a process that often takes days.
The CDC had distributed diagnostic testing kits to state health departments, but they turned out to be flawed. Replacement kits have not yet been distributed.
Sauer said Johns Hopkins had treated several patients who did not fit the testing criteria, and for whom it requested coronavirus testing. In all but one case, the hospital was able to persuade the CDC to run a test, or eventually identify another cause for the patient’s illness.
The CDC is “pretty much the only place we can access testing,” she added, and the agency has been unwilling to grapple with cases that don’t fit its criteria.
“The idea that we would have to really fight to get that test done, when CDC is saying they have capacity, is alarming,” Sauer said.
“It is a challenge when the most important piece of information — does this person have this disease, yes or no — is not accessible, and there’s no timeline for improved accessibility,” she said.
After the diagnosis in California, the CDC has pledged to greatly expand the state’s ability to test patients for the coronavirus, officials said.
“Testing protocols have been a point of frustration for many of us,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said at a news conference Thursday. California had just 200 testing kits left, he added.
The governor said that Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the CDC, had promised that state physicians would have a much greater ability to test patients who were showing symptoms, a change the governor said “can’t happen soon enough.”
The CDC has committed to sending a team to California to help track people and make sure they are contacted by health officials about their possible exposure, Newsom said.
“They are being interviewed — points of contact, family members and others,” he said.
Experts said they were perplexed by the CDC’s inability to fix the test’s flaws.
“The obvious observation is that many countries are capable of testing rather widely,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. “Why can’t we?”
The CDC operates two laboratories that test for the coronavirus and can handle approximately 400 specimens per day. Agency officials say there is no testing backlog, but it is unclear whether the labs will be able to keep up with demand if the need — and eligibility — increases testing substantially.
Under the new federal criteria, people with respiratory symptoms who traveled to Iran, Italy, Japan and South Korea should be tested — not just those who traveled in China. So should severely ill patients with acute lower respiratory symptoms who are hospitalized and in whom other diagnoses have been ruled out.
A criticism of the new criteria, however, is that doctors will have to wait until someone is extremely ill to test for the virus if that person did not travel to the affected regions or had contact with a known case.
“If we could identify these people earlier who don’t specifically meet one of the two criteria, or some sort of broader travel criteria, we could get them tested,” Sauer said. “You have to wait until someone’s really sick to push that test now, even with this new criteria.”
Kenneth E. Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, said he planned to appeal to Vice President Mike Pence — whom President Donald Trump named to lead federal preparations — “to order the CDC to develop a rapid point of care test” that hospitals could use to screen patients.
In the meantime, Raske said, the Wadsworth Center, New York’s public health reference laboratory, should be certified to do these tests.
If more community-acquired infections turn up, and the disease cannot be contained, the strategy will have to become one of mitigation, said Dr. Neil Fishman, associate chief medical officer for the University of Pennsylvania Health System.
“That’s a little difficult to do when you don’t have a readily available test, and when the turnaround time for the test can be days instead of hours,” he said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2020 The New York Times Company
https://www.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-diagnosis-california-highlights-testing-131637176.html
@ Baje
You are right. It is all about tourism and nothing at all to do with the health security of Barbadian people. This is what makes it so dangerous and despicable.
As time goes by, these guys keep exposing themselves that although they live in the ‘big countries,’ they’re just as Bajan as we are, with similar short-comings and are viewed by their hosts as second rate lawyers, bookkeepers and journalists………
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
USA, CANADA, UK ARE FIRST WORLD COUNTRIES.
NONE OF THOSE COUNTRIES COME BEGGING TO BARBADOS GOVERNMENT TO FIND THEIR PEOPLE JOBS OR HANDOUTS.
EVEN TO BE VIEWED SECOND RATE IN DEVELOPED USA, CANADA, UK ANY PRACTICING PROFESSIONAL lawyers, bookkeepers and journalists etc………ARE WAY AHEAD OF COUNTERPARTS IN BARBADOS WHICH IS A THIRD WORLD ISLAND BEGGING FOR ASSISTANCE INCLUDING IMF.
WHO increases risk to ‘very high,’ tells governments to ‘wake up’
The World Health Organization on Friday increased its coronavirus risk assessment to “very high” as cases outside of China continue to increase. But officials caution the virus can still be contained if the chain of transmission can be broken.
“We are on the highest level of alert or highest level of risk assessment in terms of spread and in terms of impact,” said Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies program. He said the designation was not meant to alarm or scare people, but to alert every country to be vigilant.
“This is a reality check for every government on the planet: Wake up. Get ready,” he said. “This virus may be on its way and you need to be ready. You have a duty to your citizens, you have a duty to the world to be ready.”
At the same time, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General, noted that most cases can still be traced to known contacts or clusters of cases.
“We do not see evidence as yet that the virus is spreading freely in communities,” he said. “As long as that’s the case, we still have a chance of containing this coronavirus, if robust action is taken to detect cases early, isolate and care for patients and trace contacts.”
Coronavirus updates every day: Get USA TODAY’s Daily Briefing in your inbox
Meanwhile, more than 20 vaccines are being developed worldwide with results from clinical trials expected in a few weeks, he said.
The coronavirus outbreak has infected more than 83,000 people and killed nearly 3,000 people globally as of Friday morning.
China, though hardest hit, has seen lower numbers of new infections, with 327 additional cases reported Friday, bringing the country’s total to 78,824. South Korea has recorded 2,337 cases, the most outside of China.
Here’s the latest on the outbreak of COVID-19:
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CDC gives OK for states to test
In the U.S., Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said Friday that the CDC has determined that state and local health officials can go ahead and use testing kits initially believed to be inadequate. She said the CDC has since determined that despite missing one of three components, the kits are sufficient for accurate testing and will serve as the model of new kits.
The decision, she said, would increase testing capacity and that the CDC was moving “as quickly as possible” to get kits to state and local authorities.
– Doug Stanglin
Dow reels as virus anxiety grows
U.S. stocks tumbled further Friday, deepening this week’s global rout on fears that a deadly virus in China is spreading.
The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 900 points shortly after the opening bell, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 slid 2.5%. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.7%.
The Dow plummeted nearly 1,200 points on Thursday – its biggest one-day point drop ever – on rising anxiety over the outbreak. Thursday’s losses put the blue-chip average into a correction – a decline of 10% from a recent high – for the first time since December 2018.
The S&P 500 fell 4.4% Thursday, down 12% from its Feb. 19 all-time high. Following Thursday’s losses, the Dow and S&P 500 were down more than 10.5% so far this week, heading for their worst weekly performance since the financial crisis in 2008.
– David Brinkherhoff
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-workers-didnt-proper-gear-130000439.html
@ baje
It would appear that even if we dodge the virus here, we will be unable to dodge the economic fallout that will follow it.
Look to hear when no growth is recorded in 2020 that it’s the viruses fault. Reason of course being we have a one leg economy and no plan B or fully encompassed growth plan.
@ John A
Have the central bank and the ministry revised their projections?
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