The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

HEALTH Minister Renward Wells made a strong appeal yesterday for vaccinations and stricter adherence to the current public health measures, saying confirmation of the Delta variant’s presence in the country is “concerning”.

Mr Wells spoke after the Ministry of Health on Wednesday confirmed the variant had been detected in the country and is now the predominant strain.

He said while the confirmation was not entirely surprising, it’s still worrisome to hear given the massive strain already placed on the nation’s healthcare system due to increasing infection rates and hospitalisations.

“The Delta variant is the most virulent and it has the highest rate of fatality for any COVID variants. It is the variant that is (throughout) the globe right now causing massive problems both in India and the UK, all over the globe really with hospitalisations and deaths,” he told reporters at an advanced poll site.

“We expected in the ending part of June that we may have had the Delta variant so that’s why we sent all of the samples off and we pressed a lab in Brazil to get them back to us as quickly as possible because at the end of June, we started to see a dip in our numbers for COVID positive.

“And all of a sudden it started shooting up again and the rate was greatly multiplied so that told us we (were) dealing with something that was different than what was currently in the community.”

According to Mr Wells, the sudden uptick in cases seen in June was what prompted officials to reimpose certain COVID-19 measures in July.

However, when asked if government was considering tightening restrictions even further due to Delta’s presence, Mr Wells said officials don’t see a need to do so at the moment.

“We have the protocols in place,” he added. “There is no need to necessarily strengthen the protocols. It’s just the need for greater adherence to ensure that we keep the spread down as much as possible. The government does have measures in place.

“We reduced curfews, but you know we have the solution for what ails us and that is for our people to go out and get vaccinated. I say it all the time, I got mines (sic). You got yours and get vaccinated.”

In Wednesday’s statement, health officials said 98 samples were sent to a laboratory in Brazil for variant testing.

However, of those samples sent, 41 showed sequencing for the Delta variant, 39 for the Alpha variant while one was positive for the Gamma strain. The remaining 18 samples are still going through the genomic testing process.

Confirmation of the contagious Delta strain comes as the nation seeks to arrest control of an already raging COVID-19 pandemic.

It also comes as the country prepares for an early election.

COVID concerns were reignited yesterday after thousands of voters in New Providence and Grand Bahama gathered at the polls to cast an early vote, with little to no social distancing seen in many instances.

“It is a concern and unfortunately, persons are clustering because of the heat,” Mr Wells told reporters when asked about the crowded scenes at CV Bethel High School.

“That’s the issue. Folks are clustering more because of the heat, but during this election and I believe the parliamentary registrar would’ve spoken to it, we’re treating everyone who comes to the poll as if they are COVID positive because there’s some folks that we know who are COVID positive, some 3,408 when I last checked. I believe it may have gone down slightly, but we don’t know for those who are incubating at this point of time and those who are positive and have not yet gone to get a test and as you know there are persons who are in quarantine and coming out to vote and so at the end of the day, what we’re doing is we’re ensuring that as best as possible we treat every individual as if they are COVID positive so we have those health protocols in place to ensure that the health of the Bahamian people is protected through the process,” he added.

Asked if he was also worried that Election Day will lead to further spread of the virus, Mr Wells said there is always a concern.

This, he added, is why it’s so important for Bahamians to get vaccinated.

He said: “There is always concern, the fact that we have further confirmation that the Delta variant is here and so the concern is that we continue to adhere to the health protocols and that we continue to go and get vaccinated and I believe that once we continue to do those things, we’ll see the downward trend and the flattening of the curve for the COVID-19 numbers that we’re currently having. The Ministry of Health even in these circumstances, we’re treating everyone as if they’re COVID positive.”