More than 300 people, including staff and inmates, have now tested positive for the COVID-19 virus at Her Majesty’s Prison Dodds.
In Thursday’s management update Minister of Health and Wellness Jeffrey Bostic said there are 309 confirmed cases of the viral illness at the prison. These include 70 members of staff (45 males and 25 females) as well as 239 male inmates.
However, no one at the facility appears to be in critical condition as infectious disease specialist, Dr Corey Forde, said if all goes well, about 73 could be released from isolation on Friday.
Bostic said there were 1 429 tests conducted by the lab, of which 29 were positive. The majority, 21, were males. Twelve of those new cases were from the prison – a lone female staff member, four males and seven male inmates.
Three other new cases came from people who were sent to the isolation facility at Harrison’s Point in St Lucy for assessment and in another set of 12, there were eight Barbadians and two non-nationals. Bostic said 28 people were released from isolation and 49 results were pending.
Meanwhile, 22 swabs from the Psychiatric Hospital were all negative, with 12 outstanding.
The Minister said the numbers had also increased in some of the clusters.
The Boxing Day Bus Crawl, which has links to the cases in the prison, increased by one to 17 and the church in the north, linked to the West Coast cluster, also increased by one to four. The catamaran cruise had seven and there were more than 100 from the West Coast Cluster.
Two bars on the West Coast have 34 and 35 positive cases, respectively; the Paradise Beach Lime had 20 cases; the two West Coast restaurant stood at 17 and 5 and a West Coast Hotel also had five cases.
The South Coast cluster remained unchanged at four.
Meanwhile, data from the first 100 cases from this new outbreak shows 65 females and 35 males contracted COVID-19, four males and two females, including one Barbadian woman, were positive on the second test.
Local transmission accounts for 96 of the cases, with the women again out front at 63. Overall, 88 Barbadian residents had the illness and 94 of the 100 cases were asymptomatic.
Also of note in that 100, there were five children under age 10, 12 people from age 11 to 20, 23 from age 21 to 30; 30 from age 31 to 40, 18 from age 41 to 50, 11 from age 51 to 60 and one person in the 61 to 70 age group. (SAT)
