by Linda Straker
- Outcome of 47 Covid-19 tests done on island to be known Friday afternoon
- Since Grenada began testing, 45 samples were sent to CARPHA; 12 of those positive
- Limited State of Emergency and quarantine period coincides with 24-hour mandatory curfew restricting movement of citizens
The general public will on Friday afternoon know the outcome of pending Covid-19 tests conducted on 47 Grenadians who are in mandated quarantine and suspected to have been exposed to the virus.
“Those results come from the individuals who are, who were, who may have come into contact with our 12 confirmed cases. A couple of them are individuals who have shown symptoms that cause some reason of concern that caused the team to do testing,” the health minister told journalists during a virtual news conference on Thursday, 9 April 2020.
Minister Steele did not provide the professions nor occupations of the persons awaiting results, but Prime Minister, Dr Keith Mitchell, on Monday during a news conference, disclosed that most of the 12 confirmed patients in Grenada visited banks upon arrival. A significant number of these confirmed cases are labelled as imported, because they came from either the USA or the UK and were tested in Grenada.
One of the UK confirmed positive cases was able to leave the island with his wife and child via an Air Canada flight before receiving his result. His action exposed a number of airport workers who were asked to place themselves in quarantine.
On Monday, 6 April 2020, Dr George Mitchell, who is the government’s appointed Covid-19 Response Coordinator disclosed that Grenada was now in a position to conduct on island testing. The 47 is more than what had been sent to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) lab in the last 3 weeks. Since Grenada began testing, 45 samples were sent and 12 of those were positive.
“We have been able to accelerate our testing because it’s now done on island,” Steele said, explaining the significant increase in the number of samples tested. He said that all the persons who were identified as possibly having exposure to the 12 initial cases should be completing the mandatory 14-day quarantine by the end of the week. “Most, if not all of the individuals to date who may have been or were exposed to our initial cases have gone through or have within the next couple of days or so will have completed, the 14-day quarantine.” These individuals will undergo further testing as part of the protocol to declare a person Covid-19 free.
Grenada is currently in a limited State of Emergency and the quarantine period coincides with the 24-hour mandatory curfew which restricts the movement of citizens. “So, this allows us as well to do further testing there. This is one of the reasons why we have the aggressive restriction on movement in the past week or the weeks coming. That is to make sure that the status quo remains as much as possible the same and that it does not get any worse,” he said.
It would be useful to know if and when the 47 who were tested were under quarantine.
I dont think we have the capability to test 120,000 in one week. SGU is setting up the PCR testing machines but they dont have a factory. Where would qw line the people up? How much exposure risk is created by having one person go to every single house in the parish? These are the questions we need to ask ourselves.
We need Parish based testing which isolates the testing groups to small groups of people who are already interacting with each other. Keep it small, keep it local, Keep it from spreading
May god bless us all
Come on, start testing everybody. Grenada has less than 120k inhabitants. They could all be tested in a week. Then we can open the country again and test only new arrivals. This could all be over next week.
Lol…sure sure
Why limited state of emergency, go to full state and full lock down before it’s too late. Stop worry about the economy, worry about the people. There is no economy without the people.
Great suggestion. A healthy nation is a wealthy nation but don’t be too quick to allow persons from outside. Remember all the cases were imported. This would be an opportunity for the minister of agriculture to boost the agricultural sector in the rural communities. Eat what we grow, sell at reasonal prices to urban communities. As a matter of fact if government provide the necessary aid, they can set prices. This is no time for high profits at the expense of the poor.