Dr Delon Brennen
By RASHAD ROLLE
Tribune Senior Reporter
rrolle@tribunemedia.net
ONE hundred and ninety Bahamians returning to the country today could have their homes evaluated to determine if they qualify for home isolation or have to be quarantined in a government facility.
The logistics of the process is not clear but Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Delon Brennen said the Ministries of Health and National Security, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force, the National Emergency Management Agency and the Office of the Prime Minister are coordinating the matter.
“The way to make sure that we are protecting our populace is to make sure that we put in place parameters for people that are going to be able to come into the country and be able to come into a government quarantine facility or be able to go home,” Dr Brennen said during a Ministry of Health press conference yesterday.
“At the beginning of the exercise we will be doing a risk assessment for everyone, an evaluation for those who request to have the ability to go into home isolation or home quarantine and when we complete the analysis if it is deemed that the facility or home situation they want to go into has been evaluated by one of our government agencies, whether the Ministry of Health, Social Services, if their home is determined to be suitable for them to be able to go into and safely be able to home quarantine, then we will allow them to be able to sign an agreement that says yes they will go in, they will follow those rules, they will continue to be monitored by the Ministry of Health but then we can be assured there wouldn’t be any issues with ongoing risk to the community by introducing them into the wider Bahamian populace.”
Yesterday’s press conference was the first since Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis accepted the resignation of former Health Minister Dr Duane Sands on Monday and temporarily assumed the health portfolio. Dr Minnis, however, was not at the press conference. Asked about his absence, Chief Medical Officer Dr Pearl McMillan said she could not say where he was.
There were no new confirmed cases of COVID-19 yesterday, though Dr Merceline Dahl-Regis said the number of recovered cases increased by five to 31.
She further revealed that officials are giving serious consideration to locking down Bimini for two weeks out of concern for potential exponential growth of cases there. To date she said 78 people on that island have been tested and 11 have been confirmed to have the disease.
Dr Dahl Regis said before the country moves from one stage of reopening to the next, there should be a monitoring of new cases, particularly those reflecting community spread as opposed to those arising within a cluster.
She said officials remain concerned about the number of frontline health workers who have contracted COVID-19, noting the Bahamas has a high number of such cases compared to other countries in the region. Twenty-two healthcare workers have contracted COVID-19 to date, including five doctors, one physiotherapist, two trained clinical nurses, one domestic staff, seven registered nurses and patient care technicians. This represents 23.9 percent of total cases in the country.
Comments
ISpeakFacts 4 years, 5 months ago
ONE hundred and ninety Bahamians returning to the country today could have their homes evaluated to determine if they qualify for home isolation or have to be quarantined in a government facility.
LMAO only in the Bahamas would you have residents locked out of the country and stuck in a foreign land for months only to come back and have to isolate in a dirty government facility rather in the comforts of their own home!
Well_mudda_take_sic 4 years, 5 months ago
Translation: "You sign this piece of paper or else we gonna lock you up in the government's grungy quarantine facility to be guarded by the defense force, where during your 14 day detention you be sure to get the Red China Virus if you don't have it now."
Well_mudda_take_sic 4 years, 5 months ago
Translation: "You sign this piece of paper or else we gonna lock you up in the government's grungy quarantine facility to be guarded by the defense force, where during your 14 day detention you be sure to get the Red China Virus if you don't have it now."
TalRussell 4 years, 5 months ago
The First among equals - minis the one fired cabinet member ejected out onto the Churchill Square - first half-backed scheme as his self-appointed health minister gets underway.
The logistics speak to there being no damn way the one hundred and ninety citizens returning home were all sitting in Miami airport for months awaiting ColonyAIR plane come pick them up - so had been lots logistics played out beforehand - then would've it had made grade school level sense have tested and received the results back on all the one hundred and ninety - before being allowed to board a plane and depart Miami to return to the colony to become residents of a system where the 12 are now Wanted, after goin' missing from government's army protected Quarantine? This new health minister may turn out be more threatenin' than the damn virus has thuus far?
Where are we comrade sister Queen when we need Her Majesty the most? Nod once for yeah, Twice for no?
joeblow 4 years, 5 months ago
Now if they came in on a private jet they would be able to self isolate in their own homes, because its the people's time!
TalRussell 4 years, 5 months ago
Richard Nixon quickly learned by forced resignation that the coverup can even worse than the actual act?
Comrade JoeB, were it not for the action of six foreigners flying in on their private Jet under the guidance of. not only the health ministers but only after a number telephone calls had been successfully placed with other government officials are the one hundred and ninety citizens being issued reentry permits to land at The Lynden Pindling Airport...it's called the colony's Imperialists' governing regime's rush for appeasement smoothie after the former health minister's dictatorial act.
Even the learned QC attorney general Carl Wilshire didn't want to act the fool on this too messy with lots telephone calls Octopus's arms, for why else would he have so quickly stepped forward to have said, the colony's law was broken. Nod once for yeah, Twice for no?
tribanon 4 years, 5 months ago
Translation: "You sign this piece of paper or else we gonna lock you up in the government's grungy quarantine facility to be guarded by the defense force, where during your 14 day detention you be sure to get the Red China Virus if you don't have it now."
Well_mudda_take_sic 4 years, 5 months ago
@tribanon is one my many alter egos because The Trib now has a battery of lawyers knocking at its door who represent the politically well-connected individuals seeking to silence my voice. Seems my posts must now go through some sort of special screening process at The Trib that is intended to delay my posts for filtering purposes. Not good!
RealTalk 4 years, 5 months ago
Glad they made it safe. But didn't PM Minnis say it will be an option between home isolation and the government facility?
truetruebahamian 4 years, 5 months ago
One of the returnees has said after landing today that he will not stay at home or recognise the curfews or lockdown - and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. Was this a student returned to Nassau from the U.S. on our dollar or his? Did - if a student learn anything while away or is he having a holiday at school? Maybe transmitting a D- virus internationally and now bringing it back home.
TalRussell 4 years, 5 months ago
Told up to a third the seats the plane were non-citizen returning occupied....think some may have used overlay gone on a shopping frenzy before departing Miami for the colony?
Well_mudda_take_sic 4 years, 5 months ago
Well over 1,000 have now registered with the Bahamas Consulate in Miami, and many more are expected to register for 'free' repatriation now that the room and board they had paid for at their college or university in North America is coming to an end. Throughout North American there must be many thousands of Bahamians looking to return to home free of charge.
I suspect some of the returning Bahamians are dual nationals, i.e. hold both Bahamian and American citizenship.
TalRussell 4 years, 5 months ago
Ma Comrade Mudda, not a bad gig - citizen or resident - if you can get a government put you and family up luxury hotel for two weeks, meals included - plus air and ground transportation are included in the for free travel package?
You do understand there would've been no 190 passengers aboard plane landing at private airport had a crown minister not gotten exposed broken his cabinet responsibility?
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