The borders are set to open on Curacao to those from the Netherlands and parts of Western Europe. July 1, 2020 on the conditions of clean negative test for COVID 19, travel health insurance, tracking via an app, wearing masks and social distancing. OK, let us examine this for a moment. As of May 8th the country of Curacao exited a very strict lockdown which lasted almost 2 months, and it was determined that COVID 19 was no longer a big threat to its population and no evidence that the virus was in the public spread.
Since that date there have been no recorded cases, except those reentering the country in strict 2-week quarantine and remains that the virus is not evident in the public spread. We managed through diligence to do what very few countries have been able to do; rid our island of a disease that is injuring other nations, causing illness and death. A disease that frankly, we still know truly little. What we do know is that it adversely affects a senior population, affects those gravely with secondary or underlying illnesses (known and unknown) causing hospitalization and death. For those with a “mild” case and recover, it is unknown if there is an after-effect years later (like Shingles from Chicken Pox for example).
We also know that this is one of the most contagious viruses in recorded recent history. The cost for this in other nations has been immense both financially and human suffering and death. Apparently, it is worth the risk to bring the virus to the island at the cost of illness and human life. So, some people can have a vacation and bring some money to the island. This is a losing effort. No one will win. Let us look at why. Curacao has an aging population with more than *26000 aged 65 and above, *11.6% have diagnosed diabetes, approximately *65% of Curacaoans are overweight and of that percentage many are obese.
We are an at-risk country for extreme harm from the virus to its population unfortunately. So, why would we risk reintroducing the island to the virus? Well, people visiting will be tested. This is not perfect, and it is known that some will carry the virus, testing may not be accurate in timing to entering the island. We know this is going to happen. Let us take the number of visitors planned to arrive on the island per month. 10000. Of 10000 let’s say that there is a 1% viral entry rate to the country. That is 100 people infected. Imported. Maybe it is .5% , then the number is 50 people.
Now, of those imported cases we know that statistically they will spread the virus. Let us use a low number of 3 people per person, since we are social distancing and supposed to be wearing a mask. This will be to either the residential population of Curacao, or other travelers. 50 X 3 is 150 people. Then this number will grow exponentially in a noticeably short time. In a few days if each of the 150 people spread to 3 people each then we have 450 cases. We also know that several cases will be serious and require hospitalization.
The tourist is supposed to have travel health insurance. There is no insurance company that insures for a pandemic when the travel is voluntary. So, someone needs to pay for this. If a person becomes ill or positive for the virus while visiting, they will have to stay on the island until recovered. This could be several weeks. How does this work? Do they remain in their vacation residence in quarantine? Do they move to another location of the island choosing? Who covers this cost? Not health or travel insurance. If 5%) of the 450 infected people become seriously ill that is people in hospital. 450 X 5% is 22.5 people in hospital. Of those we do not know how many will die, as the number of local infections and the at-risk population of Curacao will be exceedingly high compared to other countries.
The cost of hospitalization and intubation is extremely high. A hospital stay will be somewhere between 3 and 6 weeks. The local person who contracted the virus in March, which ultimately led to the hard lockdown period for Curacao was in hospital for nearly 10 weeks.
Let us look at cost assumption for this:
22.5 people are in the hospital.
Average stay 4 weeks. Half are intubated.
Intubation at 4 weeks would be a minimum of 100K Guilder. X 11.5 is 1.5 million Guilders.
The other half costs are 50K guilder (with a 4 week stay) each for oxygen/care, X Ray etc. X 11.5 is 575,000.00 Guilder. Total- 2,075,000.00. This is just after a month of visitors returning. This is a very conservative number. Their family or fellow traveler will need to stay in quarantine/isolation until cleared if they have contracted the virus. There is a cost for this as well.
The virus will continue to spread throughout the island and more will go to hospital, especially those from the local population. The local population is known to have multigenerational households. An app to track visitors only works if they have wifi continuously and tourist packages generally do not include enough data to sustain this idea. We cannot sustain having the virus on our island; the result is unimaginable. Costly. Financially, and to the human lives that will suffer and be lost. If all visiting home countries are paying for our hospital and medical services during a pandemic, for their citizens to voluntarily travel for a vacation then they all have much more money than we all thought possible and are very generous indeed.
All of this can be avoided of course. Yes, there is a cost to this. Some people will be unhappy that they cannot take a vacation to our beautiful island. Large hotel firms will be upset, those servicing tourism upset. By the way, the insurance for hotels and that service tourists are also not insured during a pandemic. Therefore, if one contracts the virus from a hotel not clean enough or a fellow diver, no one is responsible. Vacations are not a right, they are necessary (and not everyone gets a vacation), but to travel to another country is a privilege. Returning or visiting with a mandatory quarantine and test is the only way to ensure our safety and to save lives. Do remember that we already have 5 cases from a returning resident quarantine of only approximately 500 people (approximately 1%). Not all are through quarantine right now.
The GDP of tourism for Curacao is *19.5%. Every country in the world is expecting a sharp contraction for 2020. None of this is great news.
Why would we subject the country to more hardship and illness than necessary when we have eradicated the virus from the public spread? Every other country in the world wants to be in the position that we and a handful of other countries are now blessed with. To purposely invite a dangerous virus that has no where to go but infect others and cause illness and death amongst us is not only irresponsible and costly, but criminal.
Other solutions are there, long term visitors? Travelling between COVID 19 free islands for vacation? Perhaps pardon the illegal people we know reside on the island for an exceptionally long time with no convictions and make them residents and expand our tax base? Create a more hospitable tax environment to lure manufacturing and create jobs since we are perfectly situated between North and South America for shipping and exporting? We have a COVID 19 free island, why can we not take advantage of our situation versus making it far worse. There are solutions, ideas.
Perhaps you think that I have not been affected, I am effectively without work now as I rely on visitors to Curacao for income, my husband is luckily an essential worker, but I do need to create an income. I need to be creative, but I am not willing to risk my or others health. I understand people want to go back to work in the tourism sector, but those servicing tourists are at high risk of becoming ill and will therefore not be at work again for a while. We must all be creative until a treatment or a vaccine is found. The new normal is challenging, but we need to be smart and not sacrifice human life for a little money that will end up being lost on the virus effects. This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me or most people that thought the long lockdown was to save our population from harm and death.
Sources
*26000 -www.tradingeconomics.com
*11.6% Diabetic- www.tradingeconomics.com
*65% Curacao overweight Curacao Chronicle article January 29 2018 as per the survey published by the Public Health Institute Curacao
