Originally Posted by bailau


I wonder if they will differentiate between land based tourists and charterers with the latter being more mobile and being more in a position to carry Covid between the islands...


Land based, potentially have more contact with others (If not staying confined to their villa/house). I spent 3 weeks on cat in USVI and had minimal contact with grocery store (about 1 x per week) ... otherwise elected to stay mostly on the boat.

Pluses and minuses for boaters/ non-boaters. Both are important to the economy.

I believe that key to containing any outbreak is mask/ social distancing, and hand washing/sanitizer... but also suggest designating individuals with companies (Bars, boat companies, restaurants) who will be the point of contact with tourist. Test these "point of contacts" frequently to "entry point" into territory. These would likely know the locals they subsequently know the locals they had significant contact with for contact tracing. (No reason testing tourists on departure as they will be gone and they may know places they stopped, but very unlikely to know WHO they had contact with).

And medically, at least in my local highly impacted area, there seems to be less "very sick"(ie ICU) patients, and even Less Ventilator patients... My community has about 80,000 people and hospital is similar to Peebles... We are having about 30 Covid patients in hospital with 2-4 on the ventilator. Not sure if this is virus causing less sickness or we are doing a better job of treating Covid as time goes on, so I really do think BVI will be able to manage their infections WITH the strict use of Masks and social distancing when possible.... Which likely will entail less alcohol on land(Somehow excess alcohol results in less compliance with SD and masks).


Wes
s/v Sea Tiger (2022 Lagoon 46)
www.BareBoatBVI.com