In an address to the nation today, Ms. Mottley said countries around the world had all been doing some form of quarantine and restricted movement to tackle the disease, but not in a coordinated way.

“What the world needs now, more than anything else, is global leadership for global coordination because if we can do that, and we can coordinate and agree on the distribution of vaccines, … then we are in a position to give the world the best chance of putting this deadly virus behind us,” she surmised.

The Prime Minister acknowledged that individual countries were embarking on their own coordinated efforts. She opined, however, that global coordination was realistic as it was being undertaken in other areas.

“If we can coordinate globally to go to the United Nations every third week in September, and if we can coordinate globally to go to World Bank and IMF meetings in April and in October; then pray tell, why can’t we coordinate as global leaders to have a globally coordinated lockdown, and a globally coordinated framework for the distribution of vaccines ahead of the development of different variants, which may make it impossible for us to resolve with the current things and vaccines available to us?” she asked.

While addressing the 22nd Meeting of the Forum of Ministers of Environment of Latin America and the Caribbean virtually yesterday, Ms. Mottley called for a global approach to fighting the pandemic, which has already claimed over two million lives.

-30-