The novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic has hit the tourism industry extremely hard, and Caribbean nations are suffering greatly.
According to CNN, some islands have closed to visitors to protect their citizens.
In doing so, they've severed a key economic lifeline.
Others have remained open to tourism, but risk exposing its citizens to a pandemic that has overwhelmed the capabilities of far richer countries.
Being an island nation would seem to provide a geographic advantage to preventing the spread of the coronavirus.
But in reality, the economies of most islands in the Caribbean rely heavily on the money that tourists bring with them when they come on vacation.
Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean, is a good example of what the entire region faces.
Restaurants, hotels, AirBnb's, cab drivers, and car rental agencies have seen their revenues drop to virtually zero.
And while the island's extensive public health system has flattened the curve of new cases, it's still struggling to completely rid the island of the virus.