Recent and ongoing reports suggest that Caribbean tourism officials are pulling out all the stops to increase COVID-19 testing capacity in the shortest possible time following the decision by the United States to require nearly all arriving passengers to present a negative test within 72 hours of departure.
Some Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries keen to push their visitor arrival numbers up and which attract US tourists seeking options in the face of travel bans imposed by other regions, are reportedly experiencing particularly severe strain on their COVID-19 testing resources as governments in the region seek to create some measure of pushback against a rumoured further wave of the pandemic.
Jamaica is taking the situation sufficiently seriously to have already created a task force to boost COVID-19 testing capacity by the end of the month in order to meet demands from the United States, Canada and other countries, a report quotes the island’s Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett as saying last week.
