Premier Fahie said by residents remaining home as much as possible, it would assist the health teams in their contact tracing as well as to keep the COVID-19 numbers down.

“If persons think that they will be moving up and down and having a party and then 5 pm get inside your house, you are in for a shock. That is not what this is all about at all,” he said on Tuesday, August 25, during a press conference.

“Persons are encouraged to stay home! Do yourself a favour, stay home. The surest way to help us to reduce the timeframe from this lockdown is to stay home and let the health teams do their contact tracing so that they can cover all the grounds that they need to cover,” the Premier stated.

No Parties

The Premier also pointed out that parties, even for birthday celebrations, are off-limits.

“So persons are not encouraged to go over by their families to hold a birthday party and leave home and go left, right and centre. Is go to the grocery store and get back home. Go to the pharmacy, and get back home, stay home, and that is the message I want to tell the people of the Virgin Islands. It’s a tough one, but if we want to get better. It has to get rid of the bitter first before we get better,” he said.

He also reminded persons that if they are found in crowds, they will be disbursed by the members of the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force.

“We are putting fines now for anyone caught not wearing their masks and businesses and other entities not doing social distancing measures. We have to find out how to get persons back to the BVI level of BVI love and back into the calm. We cannot do that if everyone is moving,” the Premier outlined.

The curfew is from 5 pm to 5 am and only approved businesses providing essential services are allowed to operate.