GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Over 40 mem­bers of staff at the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent have un­der­gone tests for COVID-19 and sev­er­al have test­ed pos­i­tive.

This was re­vealed by Pres­i­dent’s House yes­ter­day, al­though it was not re­vealed how many staff mem­bers had ac­tu­al­ly test­ed pos­i­tive.

Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes last week en­tered self-quar­an­tine af­ter her aide-de-camp re­cent­ly test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.

How­ev­er, ear­li­er this week it was re­vealed that Weekes’ test was neg­a­tive

Con­tact trac­ing be­gan im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the aide-de-camp test­ed pos­i­tive and all build­ings on the com­pound were sani­tised and test­ing of oth­er staffers con­duct­ed.

Yes­ter­day, the state­ment from Pres­i­dent’s House said af­ter the aide-de-camp test­ed pos­i­tive, over 40 per­son­nel had been test­ed for the virus “with sev­er­al test­ing pos­i­tive.”

The state­ment added, “The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent has re­viewed the con­duct of the re­cent events held at the Pres­i­dent’s House and is sat­is­fied that all pan­dem­ic pro­to­cols­—face masks, sani­tis­ing, so­cial dis­tanc­ing­—were strict­ly ob­served and risk to ex­ter­nal per­sons neg­li­gi­ble.

“Pres­i­dent Weekes and all staff mem­bers (in­clud­ing those who have test­ed pos­i­tive) re­main in good spir­its.|

It added that the of­fice con­tin­ues to func­tion with a skele­ton staff and all pub­lic en­gage­ments have been post­poned un­til the all-clear is re­ceived from the Min­istry of Health. Test­ing of staff con­tin­ues, the re­lease said, adding some staff were op­er­at­ing from home as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure.

The aide-de-camp who fell ill had act­ed as mas­ter of cer­e­monies at the swear­ing-in of the new Cab­i­net on Au­gust 19 and when the Op­po­si­tion Leader re­ceived her in­stru­ments on Au­gust 25. But he used a dif­fer­ent podi­um and mi­cro­phone than the politi­cians. He al­so didn’t at­tend the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of Par­lia­ment on Au­gust 28.