PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten – People of St Maarten, both here on St. Maarten and abroad, I hereby address you as Prime Minister and Chair of the EOC for today’s update on April 9, 2020. As part of the process to keep the community of St. Maarten informed about the latest developments and government’s COVID-19 containment, mitigation and response measures.
A strategic meeting was held yesterday, April 8, 2020, with the EOC and this morning, April 9. The disaster management team comprised of ESF 4 and the back office, met with ESF 6, the health section, to strategically plan for the roll out of the dashboard and the use of the data in planning an execution of our mitigation strategy, especially during this lockdown. Later this afternoon, a meeting was held with ESF 5 to further update on how the controls and public order was progressing during the lockdown.
COVID-19 Cases
Today, I would like to start by updating you on the COVID-19 updated cases as of April 9, 4:00 PM. – Self- Quarantine: 133
– Self-Isolation: 203
– Number Tested: 134
+ Number Positive: 50 (2 hospitalized) Male: 34, Female: 16
+ Number Negative: 82
+ Number Pending: 1
+ Inconclusive: 1
– Deceased: 8
– Recovered: 3
As such, there are 39 active cases of which 2 are in the hospital and 37 are recovering at home or in our isolation facility. We wish to encourage all those currently suffering from the virus to remain indoors and isolated. We also encourage those caring for them to utilize strict hygiene and follow the directions of the Collective Prevention Services (CPS) and your general practitioner.
EOC Dashboard
The EOC Dashboard to record data and statistics is being developed. This will allow us to be able to mitigate and respond better. This dashboard will be launched in the coming week. Data is being digitalized in order to facilitate CPS in its response to COVID-19 to monitor and report the progress of efforts, as well as to provide empirical data to support decisions to be taken by the EOC.
A Dashboard for the public is also being worked on, which will be a ‘one-stop’ shop for all the information that is COVID-19 related and will be updated daily. The public will be able to go to this site, see the data, changes, as well as everything related to COVID-19 including our Stimulus Plan and all of the press briefings and press statements that have been made.
Delivery Program
Orders from the public must be submitted to the respective grocery stores between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM. Grocery stores, both large and small, will have the opportunity to deliver between 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM. Between 4:00 PM until 6:00 PM, employees may work on packaging items for the deliveries of the following day. Each grocery store operator needs to ensure that a priority system is implemented to guarantee that priority is given to orders of the basic necessities. All purchases and orders should be on a strict need-basis only.
The government is also busy with its deliveries of food to the most vulnerable. Over 400 persons have received food boxes and I’d like to thank all the front-liners who are working tirelessly to distribute the food boxes despite the negativity within the community that they are facing. Several persons are trying to steal from or attack these persons. This is food that the government of St. Maarten has bought and is distributing to persons on their list beginning with distribution to the most vulnerable. Several persons have registered using the ‘social impact assessment’ form. Those persons will not be receiving food boxes in this first round however, these persons will be included in the second round for the distribution of food boxes. There are over 4000 persons that have registered and we ask for your patients as we assess those with acute needs as well. Persons should ensure that they filled in the address registered at social services and where they are living currently.
COVID-19 Testing
Testing will continue in our efforts to mitigate the spread. CPS will be going out into the community with many volunteers to test, isolate and contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Those persons in vulnerable situations where isolation is not possible will be isolated in our facility to further mitigate the spread as well.
Ministerial Consultations
We also continue with weekly consultations on a Ministerial level, as well as with Prime Ministers, Ministers of Public Health within the Dutch Kingdom and also with the Minister of Interior Affairs and Kingdom Relations (BZK) Raymond Knops. I would like to thank all the Ministers of Public Health for their cooperation and support in getting the much-needed equipment and medical personnel for St. Maarten. We are ready to deal with any outbreak that may happen on a medical level at this moment.
Liquidity Support
In a meeting held yesterday, April 8, 2020, I was able to update our Kingdom partners on some of the challenges St. Maarten is still experiencing where the number of COVID-19 test kits is concerned
