It’s been 20 days since this country recorded its first case of the COVID-19 virus. Since then, the cases have been climbing.
There’s have been five deaths and one person has been discharged.
Out of the total of infected people, 49 of those came from the group of nationals who were brought home after being stranded on a cruise ship in Guadeloupe. They were immediately taken to a private facility in Balandra to be quarantined.
On Wednesday, Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram disclosed there are still 22 people still being monitored at the location.
“There are only two persons with symptoms who have been tested and isolated thus far.”
He said they are awaiting the results for those two but, “everyone else is fine.”
The CMO added that the authorities are ensuring all amenities are met and that the patients are in good spirits.
He also defended the handling of the cruise ship group and explained they were treated as a very high-risk group from the start.
“Could you imagine if we sent all 73 people from that point to individual homes around T&T? What would have happened to T&T?”
He said based on primary contacts alone there could have been close to 300 primary contacts associated with the group of 68.
“And then the spread would have been like China and every other part of the world after that. So I think the decision to have them in one place was based on their prior exposure not based on the exposure in Balandra.”
He insisted that isolation and sanitisation are being done at a very high standard at all the facilities.
About the 90 positive people in this country, CMO Dr Parasram said at this time there are five patients at Caura Hospital.
“All of them are stable not in any need of any supportive interventions.”
He said at the Scarborough General Hospital there is one person in ICU isolation.
“That person is on a ventilator as well.”
He added that a bulk of the cases are still at the Couva Hospital—75 in total.
“There are two persons in ICU, one person incubated, one stable. Of the two isolated there is one needing ventilatory support.”
He explained that there are 14 persons in what is being called call a high dependency unit, 13 of whom are stable.
He went to say that there are 59 people with mild or no symptoms as well and this journey could be coming to an end for some of them.
“We are looking at them to see if they get to the stage of seven days post symptoms. As soon as they do that I have spoken to the thoracic medical director to ensure that they are swabbed to see if they are negative. Once they are negative, they do a second swab within 24 hours and are discharged thereafter.”
The CMO also revealed that authorities are actively looking for alternate locations between Caura and other facilities to place patients who are doing better and are not exhibiting any COVID-19 symptoms.