Prime Minister Gaston Browne is denying discrimination in the enforcement of coronavirus prevention measures.
He made the remarks today while presenting a resolution to the House of Assembly for the extension of the State of Emergency for another three months to October 31st, 2020.
The Prime Minister said however, that returning nationals are more capable of spreading the virus “and that is why the Cabinet decided that the returning nationals who are going into the communities should also take an additional covid test on arrival.”
Browne said some people have interpreted this as discriminatory but he said “it is not discriminatory in any way.”
“What we are trying to do is to prevent community spread,” he added.
Browne told the Lower House that visitors to the country must also follow the protocols.
“And this nonsense that we have two sets of protocols, one for visitors and one for locals is utter nonsense. If a tourist comes here and ends up in St. John’s without a mask, law enforcement has every right and is expected to charge that tourist.
We have never made any law to the extent that tourists could roam our country and disrespect our protocols but these are the arguments we hear coming from so called intelligent people in the society.”
Antigua & Barbuda currently has 21 active cases of the coronavirus.