Risks of opening the borders

Curaçao, through the hard work of Dr. Gerstenbluth and his team, has been able to dodge the COVID-19 pandemic. The original goal was to ‘flatten the curve’ but this became ‘crush the curve’ in which we saw the infected cases remain at 16 for several weeks. In the phase of repatriation, we saw a remarkable increase of 50% of infected cases in a short period.

On July 1 we opened our borders to initially 10,000 people maximum. It is not a surprise that people are nervous. And they are right. They have made so much sacrifice to minimize the infections and to save people from dying. COVID-19 will not disappear and there is no cure for it yet. Besides, our population’s predisposition to seriously be affected by COVID-19 is high due to vascular diseases, diabetes and obesity.

Everyone wants life to normalize and for the economy to pick up again. Any miscalculation related to the reopening of the borders can cause an outbreak with can have fatal consequences for the people’s health. This means that all the hard work and achievements to prevent an outbreak would be for nothing and we would have to start all over again. Possibly with a higher cost to human health. Paradoxically it is the same reopening that we want so we can create economic activity, which can make us fall behind on the way to recovery, especially if we must close our borders for a second time.

The reopening of July 1 was a risk. The government in Fort Amsterdam rightly indicated that life is a risk. But what I missed after this phrase was that Fort Amsterdam will assume all responsibility for the consequences of this reopening.

What I would recommend is that everyone takes the necessary steps to safeguard their health. Thousands of people have trusted their lives in the hands of capable people such as Dr. Gerstenbluth. This is not the case anymore. Our lives are now in the hands of those in Fort Amsterdam who will determine how many lives will be sacrificed.




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