Tourism in Antigua and Barbuda sending COVID skyrocketing
On a clear day in Antigua, Uriah Gregory, 43, pulls his taxi van over in front of a guest house painted in bright pink, purple, and orange hues and steps out to help a woman with her luggage.
Pre-pandemic, Gregory estimates his taxi brought in $1,110 a month, shuttling visitors from resorts to restaurants and beaches during peak tourist season on the Caribbean island. Now, with few of those visitors insight, he’s barely averaging $110.
In the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, tourism is responsible for up to 60% of the GDP, making Gregory one of many locals living on a fraction of their typical income. According to Prime Minister Gaston Browne, the pandemic resulted in an 18% loss to the country’s GDP in 2020 and sent unemployment from single digits to more than 30%.
And while Browne reopened international borders in June, it took until the end of 2020—when a rash of bookings offered the first meaningful glimpse of tourism recovery—for the consequences to crystallize.
Throughout 2020, Antigua and Barbuda’s population of 100,000 saw just 159 confirmed cases of COVID and five related deaths, giving the islands of 365 beaches the appearance of a haven. Those numbers meant that only 1 out of every 629 residents ever developed the infection in 2020; during the peak of the second wave in July, it would have taken Miami just three days to achieve roughly the same levels of virality across its population of six million.
As a result, nearly 15,000 travellers flew or boated to Antigua and Barbuda in December, more than doubling the month before. (Antigua is a convenient haven for east coast Americans, many of whom can get there via direct flights.) That began a wave of sustained tourism larger than any other throughout the pandemic.
But as more visitors arrived, so did the cases of Covid-19. Confirmed positives multiplied nearly sevenfold in 2021, reaching 1,103 as of March 25. Deaths rose to 28. As a result, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention increased its risk assessment for the country from Level 2 (moderate) to Level 4 (very high) at the beginning of March.
That’s forced Browne and his government to reckon with how closely connected international travel has been to the public health crisis—and to uncover that not all forms of travel are equally problematic. Their findings could take on new urgency as travel professionals recommend Caribbean trips to clients—newly vaccinated and otherwise—not just for the remainder of the spring season but even into the typically low-season summer months.
When foreign travelers arrive in Antigua and Barbuda, they’re allowed a certain level of “controlled flexibility.” All visitors must present a negative PCR test taken within seven days of arrival, wear masks, social distance, and obey a curfew currently set from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.
Snorkelling with stingrays and exploring offshore islands is allowed, but only via certified, Covid-compliant vendors. Even hotels must be on a Covid-compliant list, like the luxury private island Jumby bay or Carlisle bay, where extensive public health protocols are followed to the letter.
Returning nationals—any citizen living abroad returning to Antigua and Barbuda—and other visitors not planning to stay at certified accommodations have it harder. They must quarantine for 14 days at a government-designated facility, such as the three-star jolly beach resort, on their own dime.
For some locals, the double-standard is perceived as disproportionately affecting citizens while allowing high-paying tourists to run free. And after videos and photos spread across social media in February showing people drinking, socializing, and dancing nearby at a resort on Valentine’s Day—allegedly including celebrities —that debate kicked into fourth gear. (The links to the videos were quickly taken down, making them difficult to verify.)
On radio shows and across social media, locals have also voiced frustration that they get fined for breaking rules, but bad behaving tourists barely get a slap on the wrist; one Antiguan who broke curfew, for instance, was fined $500. That growing resentment feeds the suspicion among some Antiguans and Barbudans that party-going Americans and other tourists may be to blame for their growing public health crisis.
Browne and members of his government disagree and point to returning nationals as the problem.
“Tourists are managed from the time they leave the plane to the time they [get back on the] plane,” says Minister of Tourism Charles Fernandez, adding that every person a tourist comes in contact with—from taxi driver to tour operator—is trained in safety protocols. He says fewer than 10 people travelling solely as tourists have tested positive since the U.S. and U.K. Mandate PCR testing before re-entry in January, and there’s no evidence of transmission in the hotel industry.
Both Fernandez and Browne say it was 1,500 ex-pats who returned for the holidays—making up 7% of inbound arrivals throughout the festive season—that were flouting the rules when they briefly extended an opportunity for at-home quarantines. Compliance was so bad, the country at one point considered mandating ankle monitors. But it instead nixed at-home quarantine options in mid-January, sending Covid-19 cases back down.
This evidence has “proven that the problem is not tourists,” says Browne, though complaints of foreigners’ behaviour are still circling social media.
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