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Basseterre, St. Kitts, April 17, 2020 (SKNIS): The Honourable Vincent Byron Jr., Attorney-General of St. Kitts and Nevis, has thrown his full support behind the Resolution to extend the State of Emergency in the Federation that was successfully passed in the Honourable House on Friday, April 17, 2020.

At the April 17 Emergency Sitting of Parliament, Attorney-General Byron said that having the State of Emergency extended will assist the Government to continue to protect citizens and residents against the spread of the COVID-19, as has been the initial step.

“We must extend the State of Emergency while we are in this crisis. To be able to continue keeping people apart or restraining the transmission it is necessary for us to continue the regulations,” said the attorney-general. “The State of Emergency that we have here was introduced so that our health professionals… could fight this COVID-19 virus. It is to protect all of our citizens regardless of sex, age, political persuasion. It knows no distinction between us and they have been working tirelessly throughout the last three months to fight the virus.”

The current State of Emergency will expire on Saturday, April 18, 21 days since it was proclaimed on March 28, by His Excellency the Governor-General Sir S.W. Tapley Seaton.

Attorney-General Byron said that the early decision to implement a State of Emergency was in the best interest of citizens and residents.

“I want to state at the onset Mr. Speaker, that when we first began this fight in terms of establishing the State of Emergency, this came some two days after we had our first confirmed case of COVID-19 in St. Kitts and Nevis and the Cabinet of Ministers, the executives of our country determined that it was in the best interest of all of our citizens to protect them so that we would be able not to have a spread, a contagion on our country,” he said. “They determined that it was necessary to establish a State of Emergency and to put in force regulations to be able to change some of the behaviours our people have become accustomed to so that very early we understood that our  movements would be restricted…”

After a lengthy debate, the Resolution to extend the State of Emergency in St. Kitts and Nevis for a period of up to six months was successfully passed in the National Assembly.