Governor Silvestri 2020-04-16

Summary of Facebook Live Chat by Governor Silvestri at 2020-04-16 19:30

Content starts at 2:50.

This is a transcript of the English transmission. There is also a Spanish transmission which I do not translate.

Note that it’s been re-ordered and some repetition collapsed.

Donations

Matching Donation:

• Reminder that anything donated to the foundation will be doubled as of Friday. Every donation is needed, no matter how small.

Fundraising:

• Current total (excluding the amount pledged for matching): USD 192,995; HNL 4,772,013
  • USD 38,795 USD still available as matching funds
• https://themakeitcountfoundation.org/
• Donate to the foundation you’re most comfortable with, there are many (for example the Sol International).

Utila fundraising:

• http://www.SupportUtila.org
• If you are on Utila in need of food, Tylenol or Aspirin, please send a message to @SupportUtila on Facebook

Food:

• Huge amounts given out in the last 5 weeks.
• Access may still be an issue, it’s being worked on, let the governor know if it’s a problem where you are.
• Roatan mayors office has been giving out food stamps.

Use of funds from Make it Count:

• Expecting Mid-June or July before we get through this so it’s a long haul.
• Goal is that they’re available when everything else starts to run out.
• Governor feels it would be a disservice to spend the collected funds without carefully thinking about it and using them responsibly.
  • For example, if the mainland cuts our food off, we’ll need a huge amount of money to get food from somewhere else.
• Medical equipment purchased from these funds will go to the public hospital

COVID-19

Testing:

• 27 samples taken and negative
  • 3 from Utila, all negative
• 4 pending (including the person who is in custody for entering the islands)
• Getting rapid test kits is the primary goal of the governor so we can ensure we don’t have COVID-19.
  • Until we do widespread testing we don’t really know if there’s COVID-19 on the islands.
  • Only 31 tests in a population of 150,000 - 180,000
• Still have 69 test kits. Main issue with them is that they need to be sent to the mainland to be analysed.
• Some other countries got test kits from Honduras as it’s the head of the CA-4 right now and there are agreements about sharing.

31 days in lockdown:

• Don’t really know when it will end at this point, expect a couple of extra weeks

Still working on getting rapid test kits. In discussions with a California organisation.

Police testing:

• Haven’t gotten the results back yet

Keeping people off the islands:

• We have patrols and RADAR
• Last step for keeping the islands safe is getting local people back on the islands, then will be completely locked down

Restaurants:

• There’s a process for opening up restaurants, will likely only be pickup/delivery at the start.
• Concerns about sit down:
  • Social distancing and high biosecurity in places which have opened restaurants.
  • It’s being studied in the capital to work out how to effectively open here

Respirators:

• Have 2 on the islands, at the public hospital
• There are also 2 at the private hospital

Deaths on the islands and are any COVID-19 related:

• There have been 5 in last few weeks
  • Drowning
  • Natural
  • Violent
  • 2 more which he’s forgotten the reason for
• None of them have been lung/respiratory related
• Hospital has a clear protocol for determining if people have COVID-19 symptoms
• Still have a priority on testing as that’s the only way we’ll really know.

CODEM Meeting

Apologies for any confusion that has been caused. Attempts to open up have sometimes been premature.

Emergency meeting this afternoon:

• Meeting today was for the CODEM (Comité de Emergencia Municipal), which is the municipal version of the SINAGER, the authority which takes over the country during an emergency
  • Mayors of all the municipalities
• History:
  • Lots of sectors have been asking to open up (especially those with hourly employees). Roatan Mayors office came out with a plan but it was superseded by the federal government a few hours later.
  • Mayor stepped back on plans to try to open up and followed the ruling that
  • only the 4 industries could be opened.
• Put together a document that would have allowed opening up further.
  • Got a call on Sunday with a verbal confirmation that some could open.
  • Mayor waited a few days to see what would happen before making it official.
  • Unfortunately, it made the national news and caused chaos as other municipalities started demanding exceptions. So the federal government shut it down.
• One change from the central government is that hardware stores are now allowed to be open.
  • Permission for restaurants and construction projects are being worked on.
• Local government understands that you can’t go to the supermarket if you have no money and is trying as hard as possible to work on it.

Going out:

• Lots of authorities complaining about people not respecting only going out on the day of the last digit of your ID.
• Request to please only go out when it’s your turn. Remember we’ve only had 31 tests done, there’s a lot we don’t know.

General

Robberies:

• New police chief in Roatan, please send governor or police details so it can be followed up on.
• Please report all crimes to the police.

Police patrols instead of roadblocks:

• Will look into it

New chief of police:

• Serrano-Nieto, who was the second in command

Cash in ATMs:

• Plane came into Roatan today to fill them up and they come in regularly.

Cargo ships and produce:

• Only two have been shutdown. There are 13-14 still operating.

Permission for opening businesses:

• If request an exception, the time frame is variable 3-7 days.
  • Will know if approved as you’ll get an email reply
• Officers know if you’re part of the 5 that are permitted.
• If there’s an approval via the exceptions committee, there’s a document provided as part of that.
• To work out if the store is classified as a hardware store look at local tax statement which has the category on it.

Taxes:

• Municipalities are open for paying taxes

Grocery deliveries:

• Up to them and their logistics

Pet grooming:

• Pet health has been operating on emergencies, talk to your vet

Emergency help for Utila:

• There have been a number of emergencies solved in Utila already, there’s a great team in place.