COVID cluster patients all unvaccinated – Minister

The cluster of COVID-19 infections discovered at an unnamed St Michael business has now grown to 12, Health and Wellness Minister Lt Col Jeffrey Bostic announced Thursday, declaring confidence it will be contained “in the coming days” but noting that all of the patients are unvaccinated.

He told reporters that all staff has been tested and aggressive contact tracing is underway.

“We have just about 40 persons or so in quarantine, [at] the business, all of the staff is being tested, we have about three positive cases that would have been sent to Harrison Point for assessment,” he said. “They would have been confirmed as positive and we have two family members that today have tested positive as a result of this.

“We have two catchment areas and two medical officers who are responsible for doing all of the contact tracing and we are really doing that aggressively and we believe that we should be able to contain this in the coming days but it is pretty indicative of the fact that COVID is still here in the country and  people need to understand that and to recognise that and to operate accordingly.”

Lt Col Bostic stressed this was all the more reason for Barbadians to step forward to be vaccinated since this prevents severe illness in the event of infection.

He said: “The impact of the virus on fully vaccinated persons is really a reduced impact and that is scientifically proven and that is what the data is saying and even persons who have only had one [dose] so far they are provided with a level of protection against the virus which is still good, which is commendable but we want for persons who have not been vaccinated to come forward.”

Social media has been abuzz with calls for health officials to disclose the name of the St Michael business.

But Lt Col Bostic was adamant that it has not been the Ministry’s policy to reveal the name of businesses with positive coronavirus cases.

He said: “When we name an institution you would recognise that institution is really a Government Institution. But when it comes to private institutions we don’t.

“The companies or the businesses themselves sometimes issue statements and they make that known to the public, so I want to continue in that vein at this point in time.”

In the past outbreaks have been reported at several named stores. The businesses identified the steps taken to control infections and reorganise businesses. They have since operated at normal levels.

Pressed on whether disclosure would lead to more people presenting for testing to assist contact tracing efforts, the health minister said while it is a legitimate concern, the current system is the most effective way to conduct the process.

Lt Col Bostic said: “The way that we have been doing this and this is the scientifically proven way to do what we are doing. The positive cases are investigated by the team and the team will determine the primary contacts on those cases and the information that is gathered throughout the investigation…  this has happened in every occasion.

“We depend on the persons who are positive to give us the information that we require so that we can tackle particular situations. If not, you will have a situation where everybody may feel that if there is a positive case in location A and that there are 10, 000 people in that location then all 10,000 people should come to be tested.”

The Minister of Health was speaking to reporters after insurance giant Sagicor handed over its Medical Mobile Unit to the National Vaccination Campaign. (sandydeane@barbadostoday.bb)