Too many families are ending up at the island’s coronavirus hospital and authorities fear that some are still not doing all they can to help break the chain of infections, Alvin Hart, Manager of COVID-19 Quarantine Facilities has warned.
The worrying trend is being driven by people awaiting COVID-19 test results but who are mixing with relatives instead of going into quarantine, Hart said in an interview with the Barbados Government Information Service (BGIS).
He said: “What we are seeing in this current outbreak and at this phase is that we are not breaking the chain of infection after persons are tested. What is happening is that after persons are tested, they’re going home, but they’re going to stop by the shop; they’re going into the supermarkets.
“Some people get tested and don’t say anything. They know they’ve been exposed and they go back to work and they go on the block. And some of these villages or areas are so densely populated…. I’ve heard about cases of people saying: ‘Well when I finish this test I am going to visit my aunt, my sister, or I’m going to look for my mother’. You are now exposing all of those persons to COVID-19.”
The latest figures from the Ministry of Health and Wellness show 55 new positive cases on Tuesday, the majority being residents.
With more than 90 per cent of current coronavirus cases being Barbadians, Hart cautioned the public to take the COVID-19 prevention rules and directives seriously.
The requirement for those waiting on results, he pointed out, is that they should quarantine at home, or at a designated quarantine facility until their results are ready.
If quarantining at home, individuals should isolate themselves in a room and limit contact with other members of the household; practise proper hand hygiene; wear masks and disinfect items and surfaces with which they come into contact.
Hart told the BGIS: “All of these components, we need to work all of them together. If one cog in this wheel or one link in this chain is weak, we will continue to have challenges. And one of the challenges we are having is when persons get tested, they don’t go home and quarantine until they get back results.”
He advised people who could not quarantine at home for any reason to disclose this to health care professionals at the polyclinics or wherever they are tested for COVID-19.
They could instead quarantine at one of the government facilities, such as the Barbados Defence Force Base, Paragon, or at one of the designated hotels, the official said. Another option, he suggested, would be for members of the household to lodge somewhere else until the results came back.
Hart warned people who are primary contacts – those who come into direct contact with a COVID-19 positive individual – to get tested immediately and self-isolate.
While he noted that secondary and tertiary contacts were at less risk of contracting the virus, he said the risk was still very much there, and they, too, should take precautions.
The quarantine facilities manager said another problem health authorities faced was dishonesty from some persons who were being tested for COVID-19.
“What I encourage persons to do, is from the time you have that test you must be honest,” Hart said. “And we’ve been having serious challenges with that. People give their addresses and telephone numbers but when you call them either they don’t answer the phone, or the number is wrong, or when we go into their district they run; we can’t find them.”
He maintained that the only way for Barbados to beat COVID-19 is for everyone in each household to play their part by stepping up infection control practices in their homes. (BT/BGIS)
