Bostic: UWI dorm residents ‘test negative’

Students and staff at the Sherlock Hall dormitory at UWI Cave Hill have tested negative for COVID-19, Minister of Health Lt Col Jeffrey Bostic has declared to an “inaccurate” accusation by Trinidadian authorities over students who were repatriated after weeks of pleas to Port of Spain.

He said a rigorous process of contact tracing took place at the hall of residence at the beginning of the month after Trinidadian authorities said a student who tested positive for COVID-19 two weeks after returning home, contracted it here.

He confirmed that the student was also a resident of Sherlock Hall where she and her colleagues were also on lockdown and required to follow the national safety protocols and restrictions.

When the student left Barbados on June 15, she received a test on arrival in Trinidad and received a negative result, the health minister told a Barbados Labour Party (BLP) St Philip South East branch meeting on Sunday.

“Then Trinidad put those students on quarantine for 14 days, having tested negative, and coming from a low-risk country like Barbados,” he said. “Towards the end of the quarantine, they tested the person again and the person tested positive along with three other persons who were quarantined.”

On June 30, the Ministry of Health in Port of Spain revealed there were four new cases, including a student who flew home from Barbados with a group of other Cave Hill students. The Trinidadian officials insisted that the cases were all imported, but stressed that the patients posed no threat to society.

Lt Col Bostic said: “I had no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the accusation was inaccurate because one, about 16 or 17 days prior to the departure of those persons, and that was a repatriation flight that collected students from all of the UWI campuses, that we had not one single COVID-19 case in Barbados, and about 16 to 17 days after that we still did not have a case, and forty-something days, except for the ones who came back in on those (aircraft), we have not had a single local case.

“ So there is no way if you work out the maths that she could have had it from here and we are absolutely convinced about that.” anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb