Chairman of the Cabinet COVID-19 Sub-Committee, Senator Dr. Jerome Walcott.
Barbadians are being told to be courteous and truthfully share information with those visiting their homes during the upcoming national shutdown to conduct the COVID-19 Community Evaluation Survey.
Chairman of the Cabinet COVID-19 Sub-Committee, Senator Dr. Jerome Walcott, in last night’s COVID-19 update press conference, explained this survey will have a two-fold purpose of identifying “persons who might be symptomatic, who might be suspected cases of either dengue or COVID-19 and then there will be another group coming in shortly thereafter to do the testing inside too in their homes”.
He said to conduct the survey, Government is working collaboratively with The University of the West Indies (The UWI). Over 300 students have been recruited as volunteers to visit communities island-wide. He said these students will have photo IDs and will be using smartphones solely to undertake the survey. The information gathered will be sent to a link that is connected to The UWI cloud system. He also said the survey should take about seven minutes.
“It covers a number of health issues – COVID-related, dengue-related and not all questions but also some observations as it relates to certain environmental matters, concerns around the area, if there is collection of bush [or] if there is water, all of these things which might allow for the vector of dengue to be transmitted,” he explained.
He added it is expected that the information gathered will be “transmitted [in] real time to the central area at The University of West Indies where all of the processing and the database will be held and the analysis will be done. And it is expected to [be] like every two hours, information being turned out indicating where hotspots are, where is someone who has symptoms or might be suspected of having COVID … to allow a series of mobile teams which we will have comprising of medical personnel, nursing personnel trained in swabbing and these will then go to the individuals in their location.”
Dr. Walcott assured the public students will have their masks, their shields, will be using sanitizers and will be at a distance from those who they are interacting with. He further assured the information collected will not be used mischievously.
“They are going to be asking questions, they are seeking to help. They are not trying to be inquisitive or malicious, they are just trying to help. We need that valuable information for us to try to identify the incidents of COVID in the community. We know we are seeing the cases, but we want to go and to be pre-emptive and to find those cases in the community, isolate them where necessary and so assist in the containment and the reduction in transmission of the disease.” (MG)