Prime Minister Harris Joins CARICOM Heads For Special Meeting On COVID-19

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, September 11, 2020 (Press Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister) – Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris, joined his CARICOM colleagues for the virtual Twelfth Special Emergency Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community earlier today, Friday, September 11, 2020.

The main agenda of Friday’s meeting was the issues related to a regional travel bubble in the context of COVID-19.

Several CARICOM countries, such as Antigua and Barbuda and Saint Lucia, have begun exploring the ‘travel bubble’ that will allow citizens from several approved states within the Community to travel to those islands without the need to have COVID-19 tests and certificates to be presented upon entry.

During their discussions at Friday’s meeting, the regional leaders benefited from a presentation by the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) on the establishment of a CARICOM Bubble which looked at the diagnostics testing requirements for such an initiative.

Prime Minister Harris also used the occasion to update the regional leaders on the outcome of the first meeting of the High Level Facilitation Council. The Council is responsible for leading the work of the global collaborative framework Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (the ACT-A) to speed up the development and deployment of vaccines, tests and treatments against COVID-19, as well as to improve health systems.

Dr. Harris was supported in Friday’s meeting by Minister of Health, the Honourable Akilah Byron-Nisbett; Minister of Tourism, the Honourable Lindsay Grant and Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Hazel Laws.