Starlight Nightclub grand opening event. Governor Bryan said Monday that he intends on ending the nighttime curfew on entertainment venues. Photo Credit: FACEBOOK
Governor Albert Bryan over the weekend told the Consortium that he was prepared to loosen Covid-19 restrictions in the U.S. Virgin Islands, stating "we can't do this forever" and that life must continue. On Monday, he added, "Covid isn't going away so we might as well get back to our daily lives as normal as we can while making sure that we take our vaccines and be prepared for the worst."
On Monday, the Consortium asked the governor what would the USVI look like once Covid-19 restrictions are loosened. He said the following:
"Things that I want to do away with is the nightclub curfews. We've already hosted a few vaccine-only food events, you're going to see we're going to be doing more vaccine-only events. We have the yacht show coming up in November; we're going to be expanding the amount of people allowed in a place. For vaccinated-only we're looking at 250 or more if it's all vaccinated people. We're promoting these vaccinated events and actually sponsoring them as we go.
"The other things we're thinking about is accepting vaccination cards from other states so that will make traveling to and from the territory a little bit easier for our guests.
"But that's the most of it because at this point we don't have much more restrictions in place. The beaches are open; schools we're trying our best to get back open and to normal [but] it's just hard. We keep having closures but it's a learning process as we go along. We got to figure out a way how to live with this thing cause it's not going away."
Relative to the Crucian Christmas Festival, the governor told reporters, "It really doesn't look positive for festival this year, I can say that right out because we just don't have the vaccine rate."
He said while the vaccination rate in the USVI for people over 60 years old stood at over 70 percent, "the young people just won't take the vaccine so it doesn't look like we're going to have any [festival] unless it starts to turn around."
And in regards to the V.I. Carnival which takes place in April in Charlotte Amalie, Mr. Bryan said that it's months away so a determination has not been made."
The governor said while some business sectors in the USVI have struggled as a result of Covid-induced restrictions, he believes his administration has been able to balance the pandemic with protocols while maintaining a good level of civil liberties.
