Prime Minister Announces Measures to Prevent and Control Spread of COVID-19:
State of Emergency and Curfew from 7p.m. to 5a.m.
Following a meeting of the National Emergency Management Advisory Committee (NEMAC) and private sector organizations, the Government of Saint Lucia announced that a State of Emergency comes into effect for Saint Lucia as of Wednesday 3rd February 2021.
In a statement delivered on Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Honourable Allen Chastanet explained that Saint Lucia is currently experiencing its third wave of COVID-19, with increased cases and COVID-19-related deaths recorded in the month of January.
“Over the past ten days in order to reduce the spread of Covid-19 we once again scaled back on activities. Our first wave of COVID-19 was a major test for us and we succeeded in keeping those numbers down. In working together as a people, we were also able to manage the second wave of COVID-19 in October-November,” stated Prime Minister Chastanet. “Now, we are experiencing our third wave, as the month of January saw new COVID cases were three times what they were in December. The rapid increase in this short space of time has put additional strain on our health systems as has happened all over the world.”
In order to address the rise in cases, the Prime Minister announced a list of protocols which include “the return to a State of Emergency effective Wednesday 3rd February 2021 for an initial period of 7 days. This will allow us to further restrict movement with a Curfew from 7:00p.m. to 5:00a.m. effective Wednesday 3rd February 2021.”
The Prime Minister also announced changes to the Covid-19 Act to reduce operating hours for business operations to coincide with the curfew. The full list of services/operations allowed are published in the Revised Statutory Instrument and on www.covid19response.lc.
