If you have the COVID-19 virus but can­not quar­an­tine your­self at home be­cause you do not have the room to do so, you can con­tact the Min­istry of Health for as­sis­tance.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s on Sat­ur­day, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said any­one with the virus can reach out to the min­istry and be put in state quar­an­tine if they choose.

“We have made the re­fine­ment now that per­sons who live in con­di­tions like apart­ments who can­not prop­er­ly self-iso­late and quar­an­tine, we are now of­fer­ing them the vol­un­tary op­tion, come in­to state quar­an­tine be­cause we un­der­stand you don’t have more than two or three bath­rooms in your house, its one bed­room,” Deyals­ingh said.

He said the state quar­an­tine will be free of charge un­til the quar­an­tine pe­ri­od is com­plet­ed.

Deyals­ingh said pa­tients in state-quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ties in To­ba­go will re­main there un­til fur­ther no­tice as he said giv­en To­ba­go's small pop­u­la­tion and the small num­ber of pos­i­tive cas­es, it re­mains the best op­tion. 

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so warned cit­i­zens who are in self-quar­an­tine not to leave their homes.

Ear­li­er in the press con­fer­ence, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram said if Min­istry of Health of­fi­cials tries to con­tact COVID-pos­i­tive pa­tients who are sup­posed to be in quar­an­tine with­out suc­cess, the min­istry can or­der that those peo­ple be picked up and man­dat­ed to stay in state quar­an­tine and pos­si­bly be charged for breach­ing the Quar­an­tine Act.

Row­ley warned peo­ple against breach­ing the act, adding, “The bot­tom line is home is the area of your domi­cile where you are re­spon­si­ble for, so if it's in a com­pound in a gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty, your home is what­ev­er num­ber your house is, not the com­mu­ni­ty, not to be out­side and say ok, I’m out­side, that’s what the quar­an­tine is about, keep­ing you iso­lat­ed.”

Paras­ram al­so warned those in quar­an­tine to con­tact the min­istry or an am­bu­lance as soon as pos­si­ble if their con­di­tions wors­en at home.

“We have quite a large num­ber of peo­ple at home, nurs­ing them­selves in mild con­di­tions, the ones that need to be brought in­to hos­pi­tal are those who have co­mor­bidi­ties, di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion and peo­ple over 60 with those con­di­tions, but cer­tain­ly we don’t want peo­ple to stay at home and have wors­en­ing of your symp­toms.”

Paras­ram said if those pa­tients have short­ness of breath, vom­it­ing, di­ar­rhoea, feel­ing weak or tired, they should im­me­di­ate­ly go to the hos­pi­tal for treat­ment.

Paras­ram said the min­istry was try­ing to ac­quire pulse oxime­ters (to mon­i­tor oxy­gen sat­u­ra­tion) for pa­tients in home quar­an­tine so they will be able to clin­i­cal­ly test if that pa­tient’s con­di­tion is wors­en­ing.