Minister of Health Dr Duane Sands.
At a press conference on Thursday evening, Minister of Health Dr Duane Sands confirmed that there has been one additional death due to COVID-19, bringing the total number of fatalities to nine. The latest fatality was a 51-year-old man from New Providence.
There is also a newly confirmed case of the virus, bringing the total number of cases to 54. This latest case is a 93-year-old woman from New Providence with no history of travel. She has been hospitalised.
Forty-five of the cases are in New Providence, seven in Grand Bahama, one in Bimini and one in Cat Cay.
Dr Sands added that the government has found 892 contacts of infected people through contact tracing. He said "expanded testing is critical" so we can "plan and prepare to protect these vulnerable populations".
The Minister said The Bahamas is using the RTPCR test as "our gold standard". The introduction of rapid testing is being explored, which requires in-country validation of the blood tests. Rapid tests are faster and cheaper but often inaccurate.
Dr Sands says once validation process is complete and if the tests match up to the gold standard, wider testing will take place.
Other points from today's press conference:
• Dr Sands said if someone develops symptoms they can call 511 or call their own healthcare provider and explain what they are experiencing.
• South Beach Health Centre has been identified as a site for a COVID-19 referral centre able to operate 24 hours a day as necessary. Its purpose is to assess those likely COVID-19 positive – it will collect samples, treat, and accept overflow patients.
• For non-COVID 19 services, people are asked to use Elizabeth Estates Clinic instead of South Beach Health Centre. Dr Sands also called on people to donate blood. The blood banks at PMH and Doctors Hospital are to stage continuous blood drives. There will be blood drives at the National Stadium too.
• Signals from Family Islands are positive and a determination will be made on when to relax the lockdowns in those communities. Dr Sands said if this is sustained over the next few days we'll be able to pull the trigger on some of these decisions.
Comments
Well_mudda_take_sic 4 years, 7 months ago
Many of us posting to this website have been saying for the past 2 months that much more testing is necessary. Sands needs to do better....much better!
joeblow 4 years, 7 months ago
Sands talks enough to seem like a good communicator while not giving information that might be helpful to the general public. It would be helpful to know what this person did, did they smoke, did they have other medical problems and in which part of Nassau did they live etc.?
The main thing we are not hearing from government officials is exactly WHEN people are being tested (at what stage) or what treatment (if any) is being given to these persons. Do they just tell people they are positive and send them home to come back to the hospital when they can't do anything for them?
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