Barbados is continuing to experience a spike in COVID-19 cases, however, Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Kenneth George said the figures are trending downwards and the 100-plus people conducting the contact tracing exercise, are making significant progress.
George’s comments were contained in a statement issued by Barbados Government Information on Tuesday.
“While for the two days January 1 and January 2, the country recorded a total of 211 new cases, inclusive of 121 staff and inmates of Her Majesty’s Prison. For the following two days, January 3 and and January 4, a total of 86 positive results emerged from 3 062 tests.
“This brings to 692, the total number of positive COVID-19 cases that has emerged from 75 889 Tests conducted at the Best dos Santos Laboratory.
The statement said while investigations are still ongoing, the majority of new cases for January 3 and 4 remain connected to the “super spreader” incident “that embraces the West Coast of Barbados, Her Majesty’s Prison and the bus crawl of December 26”. Contact tracing from two other West Coast clusters has also produced additional positive tests, that are currently still under investigation and analysis.
Statistics from January 4 are still being analysed, but George said the number of visitors testing positive on their second test, for the first four days of this year, is on par with trends observed over the past six months.
The Acting Chief Medical Officer said Barbadians “responded very positively to the call for voluntary testing by people who may have been exposed to the ‘super spreader’ events”
He said that effective tomorrow, Wednesday, January 6, unrequested testing would be discouraged, as testing centres grapple with the backlog that would have been created by the exponential rise in the number of persons being tested”.
George advised, however, that people having symptoms associated with the COVID-19 virus, should call the COVID-19 hotline at 536-4500 or report immediately to the nearest polyclinic or the testing centre at the Best Dos Santos Laboratory. (BGIS)