PM Roosevelt Skerrit has condemned the United States government for a misinformed travel advisory warning citizens not to visit Dominica due to COVID-19 restrictions and civil unrests. The prime minister warned the US to cease from their ignorance and to ask for information regarding Dominica and the Caribbean if they do not know.
“Travelers to Dominica may experience border closures, airport closures, travel prohibitions, stay at home orders, business closures, and other emergency conditions within Dominica due to COVID-19,” the US travel advisory had stated.
Skerrit said the United States is only demonstrating ignorance of what is happening in Dominica, and ought to have made enquiries before going public with their travel advisory. He said Dominica has effectively managed COVID-19 cases in the country and overcome the pandemic as it stands, and that the country is even willing to show the United States how coronavirus was defeated on the island.
“If you do not know, call me…call us [and] we will give you the information,” Skerrit said. “And we are prepared to share our practices with countries like the United States, but this is not necessary. If you are saying don’t come to Dominica, what about your country? We do not have the resources that you have, but we have pride in ourselves and we are resilient people; we have been through many challenges and we have survived.”
The prime minister said the US is only trying to create problems between itself and the Caribbean countries when it should not have been “indifferent to the plight of the developing world and developing countries like Dominica”. He said his administration has written a formal letter to the US government to resolve the issues raised in the advisory.
Further to the fact that there are unrests on the island, Skerrit warned Dominicans to be mindful of what they say on radio and on social media since these have a tendency of misleading the whole world. He stated that when people make empty threats on the electronic and social media, governments of other countries take it seriously and take implicating actions accordingly.
There have been over five million COVID-19 cases in the US with about 170,000 related deaths, and while all the 18 positive cases in Dominica recovered following hospitalization, the island has not witnessed any new cases in almost three months.
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