"Every crisis in your life create opportunities, of course, crisis also exposes deficiencies, it shows you where you're porous, where your weak areas are, but it then, in turn, allows you to have some lessons learnt," Skelton-Cline said on the Tuesday, March 17, 2020, edition of his radio show.

Learning from crisis

He said with those lessons, corrective measures and cures can then be put into place, to mitigate the effects of similar issues in the future.

"It is said that you never let a crisis go to waste, you have to take full opportunity to correct what needs to be corrected, to take advantage of opportunities that come out... and it is no different in this situation," the man of the cloth noted.

The virus he said, while it may seem like a health issue at face value, when the story is told it will be more of an economic virus due to the impacts it is already having on the global stage.

"Right here in these Virgin Islands (VI), we are glad to say, we are still a coronavirus free zone that we do not have any confirmed cases in our territory," he said.

Gov't receives high praises

Even as the impacts of COVID-19 are already being felt in the territory with shoppers panic buying and projected shortages in items like tissue, the Premier Andrew A. Fahie (R1) led Government came in for high praises for their response and preparedness measures towards protecting Virgin Islanders.

"I do believe that our government has taken the right measured steps so far, in doing what is necessary," he said pointing out measures at the border, screenings policies and plans to quarantine persons coming from high impact coronavirus areas.

The latest stats of the disease on the global scale according to the World Health Organisation is 266,073 confirmed cases and of that figure 11,184 deaths. For yesterday alone, there was a total of 32,000 new COVID-19 cases recorded around the world.