Governor Silvestri 2020-05-25

Summary of Facebook Live Chat by Governor Silvestri at 2020-05-25 07:50

Starts at 01:30

The Spanish tramission can be found here

Will aim to be on at 08:00 tomorrow to answer more questions

Oversight committee report at 15:00 tomorrow

People Smuggling

COVID tests and quarantine

• First case confirmed
• Please don’t blame anyone, we’re all in this together as a department
• People in quarantine have been responsible and stayed there
• 15 people tested from the smuggled in group
  • 8 results returned: 1 positive, 7 negative
  • 7 results pending

Actions to take:

• Start reporting and publicly shaming people who wish to come illegally or are promoting coming illegally to others
  • There is a system in place to bring islanders back so those who wish to come back will be able to so do in the coming couple of weeks. A trip have been scheduled this week.
• If you know anything about the people who smuggled people to the islands, please report them. There is a reward.
• If you are a family member or friend who came into contact with any of those who have come in illegally, please go and get tested

Smuggler:

• Have information about one person, including a photo
• They were not from Sandy Bay
• If you have the name and/or picture of others, please send them to the governor. Will be treated as an anonymous tip.

Consequences for people smugglers:

• Not in that position right now. Need to find the problem and contain it.
• Just need to know how big this is, who was involved and who came into contact with those who might have been infected.

Islanders setting bad example:

• It’s particularly unfortunate that the people who were smuggled on are islanders (who have a legitimate way to return). This sets a bad example for mainlanders.
• Concern that this will tempt mainlanders to head to the islands as things deteriorate.

Pressuring people to talk

• The government is not going to torture people or threaten them to talk
• Working on a “no harm no foul” approach to get them to provide more information about the smuggling scheme and operators voluntarily

Planning and Next Steps

Process for deportees wanting to return to the Bay Islands:

• Go through the process for bringing people back from La Ceiba

Repatriation from USA:

• Working on returning people from the mainland first, then will do USA

Preparing for COVID-19 on the islands:

• Stocking up on medicine
• Plan to bring people home
• Working closely with doctors and specialists to make scientifically based decisions.

Long term plan:

• Plan is to slowly open, this is what this week’s reopen test is part of
• Working with chamber of tourism for international reopening which was to be next
• This has been slowed due to a COVID-19 case appearing on the island, now we need to make sure it’s contained before we can restart the opening process.

General

RECO:

• No full solution yet
• If you have an problem with a RECO bill, remember that April is a month you don’t have to pay

Construction workers:

• Can work if you have a salvo conducto
• Salvo conduto is a special permit that allows a project to continue despite the lock down

Business operation permits:

• No discounts at this time
• Municipal taxes are based on volumes of sales, so next year when you apply for your permit it’ll be cheaper due to the low volume of sales

Taxis:

• Not permitted at this time

Close border between Santos Guardiola and rest of island:

• Entire island is in this together, no internal borders will be closed on Roatan

Rapid Testing:

• Do rapid testing to get an idea of infection rates and act as a first pass filter to decide who to PCR test
• PCR testing is slower, much more expensive and there are fewer tests available

NGOs supplying food:

• They are welcome to continue

Contact tracing:

• The governor will do an update describing this process

Some people still believe that COVID-19 is fake, so we still have education to do