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Scientific Report: SKN Has Beaten Coronavirus
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  • Date: 13-02-2021

The Federation of St Kitts and Nevis has largely tamed the spread of COVID-19, notes a data-tracking site assembled of over 4,000 scientists.

The report provides guidelines and recommendations for policymakers, businesses and individuals and has been in operation since February 29, 2020. The team includes New England Complex Systems Institute, Harvard, UCLA and MIT epidemiologists, clinicians, technology creators and data analysts. To date, the Federation has recorded only 35 cases and zero deaths.

The site rates countries as either ‘winning’, ‘nearly there’ or ‘needs action’, depending on the seven-day rolling average of their new confirmed cases. St Kitts and Nevis ranks under the ‘winning’ list and is classified in the ‘green zone’. This means the country has had no new local transmission for 14 consecutive days, any new cases are imported and isolated upon entering the zone, and the region does not share a land border with a red zone.

The site states: “Green countries are either at that point [zero new cases] or very close to it. Yellow countries are those which could reach that point within a reasonable time frame. They still have to get lower to be green. Red countries are either going the wrong way, staying constant, or going down very slowly.”

Also making the list of ‘winners’ were countries like Australia, Iceland, Vietnam and New Zealand. From the Caribbean, Dominica and the Bahamas are mentioned to be doing well in controlling new cases of the virus.

Aside from St Kitts and Nevis’ immediate action to close borders, limit gatherings and equip hospitals with state-of-the-art amenities to deal with COVID-19 patients, Prime Minister Timothy Harris’ government also allocated Citizenship by Investment (CBI) Programme funds to help the economy during the lockdown. CBI funded the Poverty Alleviation Programme, which provided low-income households with a monthly stipend.

During a webinar, the Prime Minister said, “it is the resources […] from the CBI Programme that allowed us to respond so early and properly.”

“St Kitts and Nevis is one of the safest places to be. [It] has the least number of confirmed COVID-19 cases of all sovereign states in the [Caribbean]. That is a remarkable record as we speak. We have not one death associated,” said Les Khan, the head of the nation’s CBI Unit in another webinar. “We acted quickly and decisively with regard to the science and the experiences of other countries to put St Kitts and Nevis in a strong place,” he added.