Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Kenneth George, updating the public.
Minister of Health and Wellness, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bostic, speaking to the country via a televised broadcast.
Barbados, as of January 2, 2021, has recorded a total of 606 persons infected with the coronavirus (COVID-19).
On December 31, 2020, there were 395 positive cases. However, on the first two days of the new year, an additional 211 positive cases were identified.
Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr. Kenneth George, gave this update during a virtual press conference last night. He reported “good co-operation” from the public after the Ministry of Health and Wellness’ appeal for people who attended a bus crawl on Boxing Day to go to the Eunice Gibson Polyclinic for assessment.
“We have had good co-operation from the public as many of you would have seen some of the lines in front of the polyclinics, and this is testimony to the effect that Barbadians are really willing and able to identify themselves as either primary, and sometimes second contacts, and we have tried to accommodate all of you – this will continue.”
As some of the latest positive cases involved members of the Barbados Prison Service, Dr. George confirmed that the first set of testing at Her Majesty’s Prison has been completed, and that after five days, all persons who tested negative will be tested again.
“Those persons who tested positive will be placed in clinical care. Most of the officers to date have been transferred to Harrison Point and the prisoners will remain at Dodds. And we have put systems in place to make sure that the clinical situation within the confines of the prison are maintained.”
In addition, the CMO not going into too much details, also disclosed that the Ministry is currently investigating other COVID-19 clusters. “Those clusters are being contact traced and that is an ongoing process,” he said, adding: “We will continue to work with the protocols ensuring every one is tested on their second test at least five complete days apart to ensure that it is clear that anyone in Barbados to be released from quarantine will have two tests.”
Minister of Health and Wellness, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Bostic, told Barbadians, “Today we are in a better place than we were yesterday or the day before.
“And we are in a better place as a result of the excellent work that has been done and continues to be done by the hardworking staff at the Best-dos Santos Public Health Laboratory; and those who are working in the field doing the contact tracing, as well as those who have been spending significant amount of time swabbing persons so that the samples can reach the lab.”
Minister Bostic also commended Barbadians for their response to the appeal made by his Ministry at the start of the year. “We have been able to make significant strides in terms of the contacting of persons who we have been able to link to some of the cases that we’ve had – we have also been able to do most of the testing for those contacts with some ‘mopping up’ work that is still to be done.
“I am happy that as a result of that – we are beginning to see some patterns in what we are doing, we are beginning to see some light at the end of the tunnel – we are beginning to see where we have to be more aggressive and given the figures, we believe there is some hope and that we are wrestling with this in a way that will allow us to be able to deal with it in a couple weeks,” he added.