With staff cuts recently being made at the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory (MDL), former lab director and former scientific advisor to the Government Dr. Carika Weldon was asked, in an exclusive interview with TNN, what would happen if another outbreak of the virus which is currently contained in the east may reach Bermuda.
Dr. Weldon found the question difficult to answer because she does not know how much the Government values human life anymore or the current appetite for risk related for Covid19.
“ It seems like we’re okay with having an announcement every other day that someone has died from COVID,” she said. “ My pride and badge of honor was that, back in 2020, no one had died under my watch for nine months, until we had the first real outbreak in December 2020. This contrasts with now, where it seems we’re content with announcing [deaths] every other day and repeating ‘I send my condolences, I send my condolences.’ Sending condolences does not bring back a life at all.”
Dr. Weldon understands and appreciates that Bermuda has a tourism product, but warns that tourists cannot have an authentic experience if people are dead. Soon, all arrival tests taken at the airport will be antigen tests, so the Government will no longer be able to track which variant of the virus is coming into the country.
“ When I first arrived here [from the U.K.], people had to get approved for a test,” she said. “ It now seems that we are [slowly] going back to that point. 125 deaths is a lot for a small island like Bermuda and a big chunk of that could have been avoided. It’s daunting to see the regression of what is going on.”
Stay tuned for more from TNN’s interview with Dr. Weldon.
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