COVID-positive patients going about business warned

Several persons caught flouting the home isolation and quarantine rules have been made to complete their remaining treatment at Government-run facilities.

This was revealed today by Dr Adanna Grandison, Consultant Manager of Home Quarantine and member of the Isolation and Home Quarantine Committee, who said in some cases the Royal Barbados Police Force (RBPF) had been asked to intervene.

Speaking during a press conference this morning, Dr Grandison disclosed that 7522 persons were currently in home isolation and quarantine.

She said while most of those persons were following the protocols there were others who were boldly flouting them.

“I will say that the majority of persons that are designated as safe to stay at home they do stay at home and they do comply. However, we do always have those persons when we investigate that the persons are purposely or intentionally with very poor reason attempting to breach isolation. Sometimes persons may attempt to breach isolation for something as simple as food and not knowing where to turn to and sometimes panicking and seeking to get food which is a challenge. We have put measures in place to partner with the Ministry of People Empowerment to provide food hampers to persons who we have identified as having need of that social support,” Dr Grandison pointed out.

“However, there are some persons who grossly abuse the powers that are there and will go about whether they want to continue to visit their consorts or they want to just continue with life as normal and we generally tend to see that with persons who are feeling well. This number has not been a very large number, it has been less than 50 I can tell you that, and those persons have been brought to the attention of the CMU [COVID Monitoring Unit] and they actually performed their investigations with an escalation if needed to the Royal Barbados Police Force for further action.

“There are some persons who we know who have breached and we intervened immediately and we would place based upon the fact that they are considered to be a flight risk, we would place those persons in mandatory quarantine because it is a public health situation that we are dealing with. We are in a middle of a pandemic and certainly the challenges of spreading the virus are one of our greatest concerns. If we have persons who are walking around and completely disregarding the protocols that are set out, the first method of containment is to try to restrict the movement for that person by putting them in quarantine and or isolation depending on where they come in on the spectrum and then continue with the investigation as needed,” she added.

Dr Grandison noted that there had been success with the home isolation programme with 4737 persons being discharged to date.

She regretted, however, that persons were still continuing to refuse care and help from health authorities resulting in loss of life in some instances.

“With these increasing numbers, we continue to see some persons who are either concerned or scared to have that escalation of care and to be transported because of the unknown at the facilities.

“…There are persons out in the community and we have seen it based upon the presentation to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital where persons presenting extremis and they would have never known their status and they would have passed unfortunately,” Dr Grandison said. (RB)