THE Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is set to host an emergency meeting next Wednesday to assess the health and economic challenges inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic and to discuss strategies for mitigation and cooperation.

According to CARICOM Chair, Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley, the meeting of CARICOM Heads of Governments will take place online and will embolden member states to continue their fight against the deadly pandemic.

She stated that there will likely be a discussion on the implementation of a common public health protocol and common border policies.

“I have written to my colleague Heads and asked that we meet on Wednesday, April 15, so that we can share ideas, share experiences first and foremost, but also look and see whether this is not the moment where CARICOM’s true promise is upon us; that the notion of a single domestic space; that the notion of a single market and what therefore are those things that we need to do in order truly to allow our sovereign boundaries to have a virtual reality that is a CARICOM entity, the Caribbean community while the legal sovereign boundaries remain what we know,” the CARICOM chairman stated during national address to her country.

She stressed that the Region can help to sustain itself by working together and unity is in fact what is most important at this time.

Mottley stated: “I’m speaking not just about saving lives but also sustaining livelihoods, because one way or the other it’s going to rock you.”

The CARICOM chair expressed that she never imagined that she would ever see the world “stop” in the specific sense that is has today and her heart bleeds for the common men and women now suffering as a result.

She noted that many factors are interconnected for the proper functioning of countries such as food security, efficient public health and the sturdiness of financial institutions.

“Like everything else in life, there is balance,” she said. “At the regional level, if we can get that [balance] working so that we literally are our brothers’ keeper and our sisters’ keeper, then I believe that it will make us stronger as we go forward.”

Mottley also envisioned that “regional blocks” will become more important as countries worldwide will be fearful of full globalisation when it comes to travel, even when the pandemic begins to subside.

She said that countries will have to rely on their neighbours and there is no better time for the CARICOM to band together than now.

There are currently over 3,565 cases of the virus in the Caribbean Region with over 150 deaths. Added to the grave health challenge, many in the Region are bracing for the upcoming hurricane season and all have been hit hard economically and socially by a halt in tourism.