Guyana and Trinidad among 20 countries banned entering St Maarten

ST MAARTEN BANS GUYANESE AND TRINIDADIANS FROM VISITING THE
COUNTRY because the contagious and deadly Corona virus is “out of control” in those
CARICOM states according to the country’s Minister of Health, Social Development and
Labour, Mr. Omar Ottley..
Ottley told www.aroundtheregions.com in an exclusive that governments of Guyana and
Trinidad and Tobago have been notified about the current restrictions slapped on their nationals.
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, French Guiana, India, Nepal,
Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela are also on
St Maarten’s banned countries list.
Since the global outbreak of the virulent virus in 2019, 447 Guyanese and 747 Trinidadians
perished after contracting the infectious agent. COVID-19 was first detected in Wuhan, China
and since then, some 3.87 million persons died globally.
Travel restrictions were widely implemented internationally to help limit the deadly viral spread.
“At the moment we have a list of banned countries. We have low risk, medium risk, high risk
and banned countries. So, the banned countries are those where COVID is out of control and
they are not able to enter St Maarten,” Ottley said in the interview.
“When we were implementing our measures, several countries were sending emails asking us if
we can be less stringent as St Maarten is a hub to a lot of other places. But we didn’t. It’s our
safety and our protocols because our responsibilities are (first) to the people of St Maarten,”
Minister Ottley declared.
To his nationals abroad, the St Maarten Minister of Health, Social Development and Labour gave
this advice: “If you are a resident of St Maarten and you are coming from a banned or high-risk
country, you may need to have two forms of tests which are PCR Tests no more than three days

and a 24-hour antigen test. Or, you would need to have a 24-hour PCR test to enter into St
Maarten.”
He said St Maarten is currently experiencing its third wave of COVID, and since that country has
the widest range of non-nationals in the Caribbean, it’s imperative that aggressive and effective
systems be pursued as a safeguard.
“We are decreasing, thank God. In correlation to the past four weeks, we were seeing an increase
and we scaled back nightlife (activities). We (also) increased vaccination measures, so we are
now beginning to see a decrease of active cases and we are thankful for that. We had a couple of
deaths within the past month unfortunately, but all those persons seem to be unvaccinated with
underlying symptoms,” the Minister explained.
He said his country has established a mandatory health pre-authorisation application through an
Electronic Health Authorisation System (EHAS) for every visitor arriving by air, including
transits, Sint Maarten and Sint Martin residents. The EHAS is a prerequisite for boarding a flight
into the country.
Processing can take up to 12 hours, Minister Ottley advised.
The combined population of the Dutch and French parts of the Island is 77,741: 49,917 in
the former and 36,824 in the latter. Collectively the two territories are known as “Saint
Martin/Sint Maarten.” Additionally, the establishment of the EHAS covers both islands.