Public health officials claimed “significant strides” in the battle to contain a huge surge of COVID-19 infections with the largest daily rate of cases since the pandemic began, while contact tracers struggle to locate the source of an outbreak at Her Majesty’s Prison.
For now, Prime Minister Mia Mottley has urged both public and private sector workers to stay on the job from home wherever possible, revealing that the risk of virus spread within the workplace is at an all-time high.
The Government nevertheless sounded a somewhat positive note which they credited to an overwhelming response from the public to calls for testing, as hundreds swarmed polyclinics across the length and breadth of the island.
Results from testing on the first two days of 2021 place the total number of known active cases at 285. That number includes 122 inmates at the prison, 121 at the Harrison’s Point COVID-19 hospital, 10 at various villas and another 32 that are being clinically assessed.
Despite the daunting numbers that are expected to rise over the coming days, Minister of Health and Wellness Lieutenant Colonel Jeffery Bostic maintains the country is in a better place than it was as the new year began, due to a mammoth effort involving hundreds of public health workers.
“We are beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel, we are beginning to see where we have to be more aggressive and given the figures that we have, we believe there is some hope and we are wrestling with this in a way that would allow us to deal with it in a couple weeks,” assured Lt. Col. Bostic.
Nevertheless, Prime Minister Mottley noted the country has far eclipsed its highest tier of response which is triggered where more than 35 cases are recorded in a week. The tier is based on a document released last year entitled: Guidance for Addressing the Risk for COVID-19 in relation to employment.
In response, she declared: “Persons who are over the age of 60 and who are in frequent or prolonged or intimate interactions with persons in their workplace, we suggest remote working and if remote working is not possible, we suggest masking, shielding and where necessary, the ‘guard’ that can protect persons from interacting.
“Similarly, persons who are currently smokers or whose body mass index is over 40 and have occasional interactions with persons, we equally suggest remote working or shielding within the masks or face visors.”
Government’s movement toward remote work over the next 12 days was endorsed by the Barbados Private Sector Association, she said.
But in a minor easing of restrictions, Mottley announced that the number of people allowed to officiate at online church services would now increase from three to 10, while the number of attendees at funerals was doubled from 10 to 20. Anyone desirous of going beyond that number must seek special permission from the COVID-19 Monitoring Unit, she said.
In an apparent attempt to allay fears about the reckless behaviour of some tourists, PM Mottley noted that most incoming flights from Britain and other high-risk destinations are arriving with less than ten per cent capacity and are for the most part repatriating tourists in droves.
During an over three-hour briefing and call-in programme, ministers and high-ranking health officials addressed three active virus clusters but acknowledged the source of the largest one continues to elude the nation’s 100 contact tracers.
Apart from the 186 cases directly or indirectly associated with a notorious Boxing Day bus crawl, they noted that patient zero have been found in relation to one cluster of 19 and another of four cases originating on the West Coast. There are, however, a number of “possible clusters” that are still under investigation.
Chief Medical Officer Dr Kenneth George maintains there is no community spread – which is the term used when public health officials have lost the capacity to trace cases.
“We have indicated to you that we have almost one hundred tracers working with us. The University of the West Indies has recommended up to 150 tracers which we are going to try to bridge that gap so that we don’t get to the level of community spread,” said Dr George. (kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb)
