By Devonne Cornelius
St. Kitts and Nevis (WINN): Major entertainment events may soon resume in St. Kitts and Nevis according to Mr. Abdias Samuel, Chair of the National COVID-19 Task Force.
Mr. Samuel made that announcement during the February 02 edition of the COVID-19 Press Briefing.
“I want to bring some good news…I want to speak to the entertainers and promoters and the good news is that the National COVID-19 Task Force, in our deliberations, have agreed to have Cabinet consider the commencement of major events like controlled fetes and activities as of March [2022],” Mr. Samuel said.
Mr. Samuel said the National COVID-19 Task Force will provide the exact date of resumption as soon as the final word is given by the Federal Cabinet.
The National COVID-19 Task Force said that they will be in close communication with the Ministry of Entertainment to ensure relevant information can be passed on to event promoters and people who work in the entertainment industry.
Mr. Samuel added: “We want you [the entertainers and promoters] to restart and the reason we say gradually is that we don’t want to regress unless we have a major outbreak [of COVID-19]. So let’s get it right so that we don’t have to go back and forth.”
Strict COVID-19 measures have negatively impacted entertainers and promoters in St. Kitts and Nevis since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.
Over the past year, entertainers and promoters have been engaged in discussions with the National COVID-19 Task Force and the Federal Cabinet with respect to the safe resumption of events and activities.
WINN News spoke with entertainer Devon Woode better known as ‘DJ Woody’ out of Nevis who shared his view on the news from the Task Force.
“I am a DJ and a Bar Owner. It’s good to know that entertainment is being considered to be reopened because from the owner of an establishment’s standpoint, it’s not fair to see that we are all trying to make a living but in certain cases we see the task force being favorable to some people.
From a DJ’s standpoint, I am the owner of Blackstone Family and our main income for Blackstone has been from bookings just like every other DJs. We have been affected significantly because we have loans which we have to pay which and we now have to pay out of our pockets so we are happy to see that they are putting things in place for entertainment to reopen so that we can pay our bills and reach out to our fans and people who haven’t heard us in a long time,” DJ Woody said.
WINN also caught up with Dwayne Ferguson better known as ‘DJ Flames’ out of St. Kitts.
He said “I have been trying to see what we can do. I even submitted information with policies and regulations that we can use to operate…”
DJ Flames added: “The last briefing they had before this one, they said we should be good for the end of January and now they are saying March. I don’t want the task force to be saying that they are going to do this. I want them to put things in place that we can use to function.
Entertainment is the first to stop and is the last to resume. Just like churches, schools and supermarkets are functioning, the task force needs to put something in place for entertainment to function so even if we have a spike we still can have a function.
They say we are going to resume in March sounds good but suppose we spike in summer, entertainment is going to shut down again? Bills are piling up, and I can’t get to work…”
