BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Apr 15, CMC –Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders Wednesday considered proposals for a common public health policy and  a common border policy as they seeks ways to limit the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) that has killed more than 100,000 people worldwide since it was first detected in China last December.
Barbados Prime Minister and CARICOM chairman, Mia Mottley, gave no in-depth details of the meeting that was held virtually and came after regional government has implemented several initiatives including lockdown of their borders, curfews and social distancing in a bid to prevent the spread of the virus that has killed people in some Caribbean countries notably, the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, Bermuda, Suriname and Guyana.

In a message posted on her Facebook page, Mottley said “Today I participated in a virtual meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community.
“We discussed the regional response to COVID-19. We received an update from CARPHA (Trinidad-based Caribbean Public Health Agency), an economic analysis on the impact of COVID-19 on regional economies from the CDB (Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank) and we considered proposals for a Common Public Health Policy and a Common Border Policy”.

Mottley’s brief statement gave no indication as to whether or not the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat would be issuing any or a comprehensive statement on the special summit, nor did it give an indication as to those leaders attending the virtual meeting. In a statement posted on his Facebook page, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne, noted “now is definitely the time for Caribbean solidarity, in the absence of global solidarity. “We have to suspend all insular behaviours and work conjointly to resolve our own socio-economic problems,” he wrote accompanied by a picture of regional leaders at a past event.