Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is continuing to advise people in the Caribbean not to engage in unnecessary travel during the holiday period.
Dr. Marcos Espinal, the Director of PAHO’s Department of Communicable Diseases and Health Analysis stressed people should only undertake essential travel.
At PAHO’s virtual media conference on COVID-19 in the Americas, he said, “So while we understand the need to see loved ones and to spend some time, it is important to think also about our own health.”
He encouraged virtual gatherings instead because traveling is risky and there had been so many reports about Thanksgiving in the US and said the upsurge of the expectations for the Christmas holiday was larger.
“But the risk is not yet gone. The vaccine…is not going to come tomorrow. It is going to make more than a year to vaccinate the entire world. So we are not going to back to normality immediately. And there is an increased risk. So the advice is not to relax the measures, to continue protecting ourselves, to continue avoiding risky situations because this virus can kill…and we have seen so many deaths.
“So let’s think before undertaking traveling that is not essential.”