CHARLESTOWN, Nevis — The Nevis Water Department staff has to be prepared to adapt to an ever-changing environment, according to Hon. Spencer Brand, Minister responsible for Water in the Nevis Island Administration.

The minister addressed to the Nevis Water Department Staff Retreat 2021. The one-day event was hosted at the Nevis Performing Arts Centre on February 2 with the theme “Challenging yourself in a changing working environment.”

Among those present at the event were Deputy Premier of Nevis, Hon. Alexis Jeffers; and Senior Minister Hon. Eric Evelyn, elected Federal Minister of Environment and Cooperatives, Hon. Eric Evelyn.

“It is important to bear in mind that water is connected to all sectors of our economy, so any changes in one sector can result in change in the working environment of the Nevis Water Department,” said Hon. Brand. “Policy changes by the Nevis Island Administration will affect the working environment. You should always have the mind-set that changes will occur and that the process of change will be dynamic and fluid. Therefore, you should challenge yourself to adapt in a fast-changing environment.”

The retreat, a first in the department’s 37 years of operation was organised to give staff a better understanding of the department and its function and its role in Nevis; to sharpen skills to better serve the community; to meet and greet each other, and to discuss plans for 2021.

Brands recommend a number of ways in which the staff could challenge themselves, including the continuation of capacity building.

“I recommend that you continue to build capacity within the water department parallel with encouraging public participation and stewardship of our limited water resources,” said Brand. “Timely information and bulletins should always be provided to customers, and they must continue to be educated on changes within the water sector.

“I hope that in 2021 we will see more of this happening using social media, the radio and television to get messages and information to the general public,” he said.

The minister said he is confident the staff can challenge themselves by collecting and collating data which will help to make better decisions, and inform policy-makers about which direction they should take the Nevis water sector.

“This has to become a habit and should be deliberately practised by all stakeholders in the department,” said Brand. He encouraged the staff to improve teamwork in executing their duties this year. He said teamwork involves among other things, good communication skills, trust, respect, pooling of human capacity and sharing of ideas to achieve the department’s goals and objectives.

Brand reminded the management and staff that in the absence of teamwork in a changing environment they would be setting themselves up to fail.

“You have practiced teamwork in the recent past when you successfully implemented the Caribbean Development Bank Water Supply Enhancement Project as the contractor; when you installed and commissioned the Hamilton water well and installation of the Water Filtration system.

“I have no doubt of your capability,” said Brand. “I have every confidence in your collective abilities to continue to achieve great things together.”

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BASSETERRE, St. Kitts — As COVID-19 continues to evolve, the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis remains committed to taking every precaution necessary in 2021 to contribute to a safe and healthy environment that will protect citizens and residents from the worst effects of the virus, said Prime Minister, Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris.

“Our focus remains on protecting your health, protecting your jobs, our way of life from the COVID-19 ravages,” said Hon. Dr. Harris. “Working with you, we will see this pandemic through. We have a plan to come out on the other side, a stronger and more unified nation with a renewed sense of purpose.”

Prime Minister Harris said that the Team Unity Administration prides itself on putting people first.

“Your Team Unity Government…is working with you to defeat COVID-19 to deliver better services, to protect jobs, and to look after working families,” he said. “Yes, we have weathered the COVID-19 storm better than most countries, but I must advise and warn that the COVID-19 Pandemic is not yet over.”

Dr. Harris said that COVID-19 remains the worst crisis of a lifetime as it has killed some 2.24 million people. It devastated global economies with 114 million direct job losses and reduced working hours. He said that the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis was prompted to act in the initial stages given the unfolding global situation.

“Fortunately for us, because of our early and decisive actions to save lives, we made the saving of lives our first priority. Back then, we executed a lifesaving strategy. We have been able to weather the pandemic,” he said. “The strong and effective leadership which my government demonstrated in its institutional and other responses to the pandemic… brought significant beneficial results in this war against COVID-19.”

Dr. Harris appealed to the general public to remain vigilant and urged them to not let their guard down as the pandemic is not yet over. He encouraged everyone to continue to adopt non-pharmaceutical measures such as wearing a face mask, practicing good hygiene and sanitization habits, and observing social and physical distancing protocols as they are designed to keep everyone safe and protected.

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BASSETERRE, St. Kitts — St. Kitts and Nevis has received correspondence from the managing director of the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (COVAX) office providing information regarding the first portion of the assigned COVID-19 vaccines to satisfy the facility’s agreement with the Federation.

Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Hazel Laws, said the Federation has signed on to the COVAX Facility, a global mechanism developed to help participating member states obtain COVID-19 vaccines.

“We were informed that St. Kitts and Nevis can expect to be distributed an indicative number of doses of the Oxford University AstraZeneca Vaccine,” said Dr. Laws. “We have been allocated 21,600 doses that will provide coverage for approximately 20 percent of our population.

“The delivery date of the vaccine is as early as mid- to late February,” she said. “However, this is subject to the World Health Organization (WHO) listing approval process and completion of the next steps including the implementation of the country’s vaccination deployment plan and regulatory preparedness.

“The estimated supply schedule indicates that 25 to 35 percent of this number will be supplied in the first quarter of this year,” said Dr. Laws. “Sixty-five to 75 percent will be supplied in the second quarter.

“The Federation is seeking access to COVID-19 Vaccines through two other mechanisms,” she said. “Access to the COVID-19 Vaccine is crucial to curbing the spread of the COVID-19 infections and restarting our economy here in the Federation, the economy in the region, and globally.”

Dr. Laws reiterated that the plan is to access enough vaccines to provide coverage for at least 20 percent of our population in the first instance and that the ultimate goal is to attain coverage of at least 70 percent.

“It would be ideal if we could achieve the herd immunity threshold, which in turn will reduce the risk of clusters of COVID-19 cases and community transmission,” concluded Dr. Laws.

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Saint Lucia will go back to a state of emergency effective Wednesday, February 3, 2021.

Prime Minister Allen Chastanet made the announcement Tuesday, saying the measure will be in place for an initial seven days.

“This will allow us to further restrict movement with a curfew from 7.00 pm to 5.00 am effective Wednesday, 3rd February,” he said.

Chastanet also disclosed that the COVID-19 act is being amended to reduce operating hours for businesses to coincide with the curfew.

In addition, he said visitors will now require a PCR test within five days of arrival rather than seven days.

However, Chastanet stressed that supermarkets and pharmacies will remain open.

“So there is no need for panic buying,” the PM declared. He said that essential services will continue to operate.

“The full list will be published in the revised statutory instrument on wwwcovid-19 response.lc,” Chastanet explained.

He told the nation that the authorities did not take the decisions he announced lightly. “We know it will be an inconvenience to all of you,” Chastanet stated.

But he asserted that this country’s history has shown that ‘our government has always faced challenges head-on.’

Chastanet gave the assurance that health and safety will never be compromised. He said health and safety are the main focus.

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More than seven thousand vendors and shop operators have applied for the government’s coping subsidy for businesses that will be closed during the two-week lockdown.

This update from small business and entrepreneurship minister, Kerrie Symmonds, as he led off debate on a supplementary for 3.5 million dollars to facilitate the disbursements.

Since the announcement was made last Thursday, he says staff at the Ministry have been working tirelessly to process the online applications and do due diligence which revealed some people including government employees, were trying to take advantage of the system.

But he says government will not allow the actions of a few to impact whose are genuinely in need.

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HOUSTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s administration has deported hundreds of immigrants in its early days despite his campaign pledge to stop removing most people in the U.S. illegally at the beginning of his term.

A federal judge last week ordered the Biden administration not to enforce a 100-day deportations ban.

In recent days, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported immigrants to at least three countries: 15 people to Jamaica on Thursday and 269 people to Guatemala and Honduras on Friday. More deportation flights were scheduled on Monday.

It’s unclear how many of those people are considered national security or public safety threats or had recently crossed the border illegally. The Department of Homeland Security recently issued new guidance to enforcement agencies, saying that these categories of persons were priority for deportation.

Some of the people put on the flights may have been expelled — which is a quicker process than deportation — under a public health order that former President Donald Trump invoked during the coronavirus pandemic and that Biden has kept in place.

Both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris vocally opposed the Trump administration’s immigration priorities during the presidential campaign.

In October 2020, Harris stated that on the issue of immigration, “there couldn’t’ be a bigger difference between a Biden/Harris approach and a Donald Trump approach.”

“Donald Trump has been horrendous. Look at the policy which has been about putting babies in cages and separating children from their parents at the border. He also broke his promise to the DREAMers, some of which are coming from Caribbean countries.”

ICE said Friday that it had deported people to Jamaica and that it was in compliance with last week’s court order. The agency did not respond to several requests for further comment on additional deportation flights.

Officials in Honduras confirmed that 131 people were on a deportation flight that landed Friday. Another flight that landed in Guatemala on Friday had 138 people, with an additional 30 people expected to arrive Monday, officials there said.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton banned the Biden administration from enforcing a 100-day deportation moratorium that had gone into effect Jan. 22. Tipton said the Biden administration had violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act in issuing the moratorium and had not proven why a pause in deportations was necessary.

Tipton’s ruling, however, does not require deportations to resume at their previous pace. Immigration agencies typically have latitude in processing cases and scheduling removal flights.

A statement from the White House said that despite the court ruling, President Biden remained committed to the cause.

“President Biden remains committed to taking immediate action to reform our immigration system to ensure it’s upholding American values while keeping our communities safe,” the White House said.

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Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley on Tuesday announced that India has agreed to give Barbados 100,000 Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines.

In an address to the nation on the eve of a February 3-17 lockdown, she said the logistics were being worked out to get the vaccines here “in short order”, but did not give a specific timeline.

Mottley said she had written to Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi approximately two weeks ago, “indicating that our country was facing a peculiarly difficult moment and that we would wish to have both the donation and purchase of vaccines from Oxford-AstraZeneca, which as you know are being manufactured in India”.

“Let me at the outset first and foremost thank the Government of India and Prime Minister Modi….We have had commitments from the Government of India and we expect to receive very shortly the first supply for 50,000 persons which will be 100,000 vaccines and we hope to be able to start the deployment of that in the very near future,” she said, adding that the logistics of the arrangements were being finalized and more details would be given as the process moved forward.

Frontline workers will be vaccinated first, along with the elderly and those in the population considered vulnerable.

“We have given a commitment and Cabinet has agreed that the first beneficiaries must be the frontline workers,” Mottley said, noting that those in critical medical care, police and national security forces, and critical essential services that keep the country going would be included.

“We feel that in those 50,000 we can also reach the elderly and the most vulnerable and I’ve asked the hospital and the Ministry of Health, through its polyclinics, to identify those patients, those persons, with multiple comorbidities who must be in that first batch of 50,000.”

In addition to efforts to get more vaccines from other sources, the Barbados government will also benefit from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility, which aims to accelerate the development and manufacture of vaccines, and guarantee fair and equitable access for every country in the world.

Barbados is among 36 Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) member countries that have been notified about estimated doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines they could be receiving under the first phase of delivery, beginning this month.

The vaccine is still under review by the WHO for emergency use approval, but PAHO said on Sunday that this exercise is expected to be advanced over the “next few days.”

It said the number of doses and delivery schedules remain subject to emergency use approval and manufacturing capacity, as well as the establishment of supply agreements between the producers, and PAHO and UNICEF, which are designated to procure and deploy vaccines under COVAX.

Ahead of the two-week “national pause” as the country tries to get a handle on the community spread of COVID-19, Prime Minister Mottley urged Barbadians to use the period to “pause, rest, reflect and renew”.

A 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew takes effect on February 3 and only essential services and businesses will be allowed to operate.

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