The Tribune

By FARRAH JOHNSON

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

WITH Doctors Hospital announcing plans to introduce same day PCR COVID-19 testing, a local health official does not expect this to lead to a significant rise in confirmed virus cases because there is "no community transmission" occurring at the moment.

Doctors Hospital CEO Dr Charles Sealy says the medical facility will offer same-day PCR COVID-19 testing, which is scheduled to begin today. He said the hospital now has the capacity to administer 12,000 tests a month.

When asked whether he believed COVID-19 testing numbers would increase since Doctors Hospital would now be offering them, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Delon Brennen told The Tribune he believed it depended "on the response of the private sector".

"Doctors Hospital is one of the partners in our emergency operations centre throughout this response," he said. "I think their market is slightly different from that of what the government is targeting so I think it could increase our testing numbers, but we're testing for two different purposes. They are responding to a need coming from the private sector and we are responding to the public health needs of when cases are identified."

Dr Brennen, pictured, also said he believed the additional tests would not increase the chance of the country experiencing a spike in reported COVID-19 cases, since there was "no community transmission happening" in the country at the moment. Still, he reasoned if the country did see an increase in cases, the stricter emergency orders would be "reimplemented."

When asked if the public should be alarmed if the additional testing reveals more local COVID-19 cases, he added: "The number of tests being done is not a reflection of the amount of transmission or lack thereof in the country."

In an interview with Eyewitness News last week, Dr Sealy said Doctors Hospital was aiming at administering up to 400 PCR COVID-19 tests per day.

"We have the ability to ramp up beyond that as well," Dr Sealy said. "But to start off that's a number that will easily support the Bahamian populace and some of the things that need to be accomplished from a safety perspective.

"We are excited to be able to offer to the Bahamian people an opportunity where they can safeguard their institutions, both for their employees and their customers by using COVID-19 PCR testing as a way to identify whether those individuals would be positive or certainly what we hope are negative."

Dr Sealy said the hospital's "increased capacity" has given the medical facility the ability to do same-day results. He said he believed this factor was a "huge plus" for many people who could now receive a four to six-hour turnaround on their results.

"It gives them an opportunity to better manage through their organisations," he said. "We feel very confident about being able to offer that to the Bahamian public, especially now as we start to open our borders."

To date, there have been 104 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the country with 89 recovered cases and four active ones. According to the Ministry of Health's latest COVID-19 dashboard, over two thousand tests have been administered locally. The number of virus-related deaths remains at 11.