Per­sons who have been placed in home quar­an­tine, es­pe­cial­ly those who have test COVID-19 pos­i­tive, will be mon­i­tored by the Po­lice Ser­vice’s Emer­gency Re­sponse Pa­trol (ERP) ve­hi­cles and oth­er pa­trols in all nine Polic­ing Di­vi­sions, to en­sure they abide by the stip­u­la­tions of their quar­an­tine.

Con­fir­ma­tion has come from Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Gary Grif­fith, who notes that sev­er­al per­sons who have test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus and placed in home quar­an­tine, have been break­ing the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nance Reg­u­la­tions.

“There are re­ports of COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tients leav­ing their homes and go­ing out, ei­ther to su­per­mar­kets, phar­ma­cies, shops, gas sta­tions, and restau­rants,” Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith states in an of­fi­cial ad­vi­so­ry from the TTPS.

“Some of these pa­tients have been en­ter­tain­ing fam­i­ly and friends at their homes, al­though they were ad­vised to stay in iso­la­tion,” he adds.

Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith re­it­er­ates it is an of­fence un­der the Quar­an­tine Act to break quar­an­tine and this car­ries a fine of $6,000 or six months in prison. He point­ed out that sev­er­al per­sons al­ready have been charged with breach­ing the Quar­an­tine Act.

In an ef­fort to cur­tail com­mu­ni­ty spread of the coro­n­avirus, the Com­mis­sion­er says the TTPS will mon­i­tor the homes of the pa­tients—based on the list­ing pro­vid­ing by the Min­istry of Health—with ERP of­fi­cers do­ing the mon­i­tor­ing in all nine Po­lice Di­vi­sions.

“The po­lice of­fi­cers will vis­it the homes. The pa­tient will come out with his/her mask, iden­ti­fy him­self/her­self, and then go back in­doors. The of­fi­cers will not be go­ing in­to the homes,” Com­mis­sion­er Grif­fith ex­plains.

The TTPS says sim­i­lar pa­trols, which are be­ing car­ried out in ma­jor coun­tries, in­clud­ing North Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope, have proven to be an ef­fec­tive de­ter­rent in keep­ing per­sons in quar­an­tine.

At present, more than 2,100 COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tients are in-home quar­an­tine, not in­clud­ing those who are in quar­an­tine await­ing re­sults, hav­ing been a pri­ma­ry or sec­ondary con­tact.