Police have been called in to investigate a complaint that a visitor to the island left a COVID-19 quarantine facility without permission earlier Friday, a Government statement said.
The visitor, who arrived on a flight from the UK, was tested at the Grantley Adams International Airport for the viral illness and placed in quarantine to await the results.
According to the border entry protocol, all arriving passengers who are tested on entry must remain in quarantine until their results are known.
But the woman, whose results subsequently tested negative for the virus, allegedly left the facility before those results came back and took “public transportation” to a south coast hotel, according to the Government statement.
The complaint was made to the Oistins Police Station and detectives there are currently carrying out investigations.
The development comes as health authorities report that three more Ghanaian nurses tested positive for COVID-19 after being retested yesterday.
They are among 95 nurses who arrived from the West African country on July 30 in response to an outreach by the Government for specialist nurses to help bolster the nursing complement.
Nine of the nurses tested positive for the viral illness immediately on arrival, and have been in isolation at Harrison Point, St. Lucy, ever since.
The others, who have been in quarantine at south coast hotels, were all retested yesterday, with three positive results. The nurses, two men and a woman, have been transferred to the isolation facility.
The number of confirmed cases in Barbados has risen by five. In addition to the three new cases are two people who arrived in the island last Saturday as in transit passengers but whose positive test results came back before they boarded their connecting flights, and so they were placed in isolation here.
Out of a total of 138 confirmed cases, seven people have died, 31 remain in isolation and 100 recovered patients have been released.
There were 337 tests done by the Best-dos Santos Public Health Laboratory on Thursday , bringing the total number of tests done since February 11 to 12,570.
