I must commend your paper for continuing to lead the way in terms of courageous and fair reporting, as you seem to be the only one prepared to call a spade a spade.
I read with great interest the series of stories you carried in your last edition warning of the dangers of the way this COVID situation had been handled by Health Minister Nickolas Steele, and the possible fallout, including your revealing piece about the struggles being faced by hoteliers.
So it was quite interesting this week to see your warning coming true as the CDC increased the risk alert for Grenada to Level 3, essentially warning people about travelling to Grenada and jeopardizing our economic recovery.
What is interesting to note is that the CDC downgraded Grenada while we only have 12 active cases, according to the Ministry of Health. Who gets downgraded for just 12 cases?
Now when asked about it the Minister said well it was because of the cluster in December. What cluster? As far as we can see there was a lot of questionable information about that entire episode. The truth is, we had the spotlight put on us because the Minister panicked and started hurling accusations about Sandals, a company that has a huge global footprint. So what did the Minister think was going to happen? The whole world started looking and saying well Grenada must be a COVID hotspot.
In fact I must commend THE NEW TODAY for being the only paper that sought to point that out, and you have been proven accurate. It is unfortunate that I am not seeing the same level of bravery from others. I saw for instance a story out of Barbados where Sandals there had been relisted as an official accommodation less than a week after being delisted.
Now I know that the media and the Minister had made quite a song and dance about that to support what was done in Grenada, so I find it very curious that they have not given the same level of prominence to the fact that Barbados was able to fix their issue with Sandals.
And that speaks to yet another point THE NEW TODAY had raised in one of its pieces, that Minister Steele did not show the relevant competence to be able to treat with one of the island’s biggest investors in a time of crisis, and he has now been shown up by his counterparts in Barbados, who did what they had to do to resolve the issue.
So I am sorry but the government cannot deflect from the fact that the downgrade by the CDC is their doing, was brought about by their panicked response, as much as anything else. Hopefully we will get a more favourable rating during the next CDC update, but damage done.
Keep up the good work NEW TODAY.
M. Joseph