Samp­son Nan­ton

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said yes­ter­day the de­ci­sion to be­gin self-quar­an­ti­ning at home was not be­cause the health sys­tem was over­whelmed.

How­ev­er, he warned that if this was not done, the coun­try could have reached a place where­by el­der­ly peo­ple need­ing beds at hos­pi­tals would not have been able to get them.

He spoke dur­ing an in­ter­view on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day morn­ing.

“The spec­trum of care goes down step-down, quar­an­tine, hos­pi­tals.

“So we have over 1,000, so we were nev­er over­whelmed in terms of num­bers.

“What we want to pre­vent is a week from now be­ing over­whelmed and the ones who need to be hos­pi­talised can’t be hos­pi­talised be­cause we have a mild, rel­a­tive­ly healthy young adult tak­ing up a bed.

“So this is a proac­tive step to make sure that days from now when the el­der­ly need a bed, need a ven­ti­la­tor, they can get one,” he said.

He said coun­ty health of­fi­cers will be charged with en­sur­ing that pa­tients at home are mon­i­tored and that oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers are al­so test­ed.

The Min­is­ter said guide­lines will al­so be sent out on how to quar­an­tine at home, adding that pa­tients will have to wear masks in their homes once there are oth­er mem­bers of the fam­i­ly there. Deyals­ingh added that there may be a pos­i­tive flip-side to quar­an­ti­ning at home, stat­ing that many peo­ple who were re­luc­tant to know their sta­tus­es for fear of be­ing sent to State quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ties, would be more will­ing to do so now.

Pa­tients at home will be con­tact­ed twice dai­ly by health of­fi­cials and once a pa­tient be­gins to de­te­ri­o­rate, he or she will be trans­ferred to a hos­pi­tal.

Deyals­ingh said the Min­istry has boost­ed its com­ple­ment of doc­tors and nurs­es to make those calls.

He warned as well that this week­end will see a spike in cas­es brought about by the large num­ber of peo­ple who flocked to beach­es and bars two weeks ago, one day be­fore new re­stric­tions were im­ple­ment­ed.

“That be­hav­iour in Mara­cas and beach­es will give us a spike, un­for­tu­nate­ly.

“The last lap drink­ing will give us a spike, un­for­tu­nate­ly.

“You are go­ing to get a spike this week­end in­to ear­ly next week. Ex­pect it.”

He added: “Where we are now is due to the be­hav­iours of the pub­lic two weeks ago. Where we will be two weeks from now de­pends on the be­hav­iour of the pub­lic.

“While we talk about what the Min­istry do­ing, we tend to gloss over what the pub­lic is do­ing.”

Deyals­ingh said that the back­log of cas­es be­ing test­ed was around 600 Wednes­day, a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion, he said, from ear­li­er this week.

He said they ex­pect to get back to a 24 to 48-hour cy­cle of test­ing soon. He is urg­ing the mem­bers of the pub­lic to ad­here to the reg­u­la­tions.

“Don’t go down the is­lands and park five boats next to each oth­er and have a raft-up and jump from boat to boat drink­ing.

“Don’t go and have a CPL par­ty to watch crick­et with 10 and 15 and 20 peo­ple.

“The be­hav­iour across the spec­trum has to change.”

The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives will to­day de­bate leg­is­la­tion on wear­ing masks and penal­ties for breach of quar­an­tine.

The leg­is­la­tion will go to the Sen­ate to­mor­row and the Min­is­ter said that he hopes that by Mon­day the new law will be in place.

He said af­ter the Par­lia­ment pass­es the leg­is­la­tion, the fines will be out­lined in the Pub­lic Health Or­di­nances.