At a virtual town hall meeting on Tuesday, March 31, 2020, Prime Minister Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris cautioned residents that the number of positive test results is likely to rise, which would be in keeping with global trends.
“It will climb because we are doing more testing and as a consequence of that we expect to have more results that are positive. It will climb because as a consequence of having confirmed cases, one of the most vigorous efforts has been made to do contact tracing – that is identifying everyone with whom those patients would have come into contact,” Dr. Harris stated.
In some cases, contact tracing is also being done to find secondary persons who may have associated with individuals who were in contact with the patients.
This contributes to the high number of individuals currently in quarantine. Thirty-four individuals are quarantined at a government facility, while 314 persons are quarantined at home. Ninety-one persons have been released from quarantine.
Eight persons remain in isolation. Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Hazel Laws said the patients are in a stable condition.
These statistics were shared at Wednesday’s (April 01, 2020) daily media briefing held by the COVID-19 Communication Task Force.
Dr. Marissa Carty of the Ministry of Health provided the update and reported that importantly there had been no COVID-19-related deaths in St. Kitts and Nevis. One hundred and two tests for the coronavirus were carried out with 45 negative results, and 49 results are pending.
St. Kitts and Nevis is currently in a 24-hour lockdown, which started on March 31 at 7 p.m. and runs to April 03, at 6 a.m. in the first instance.
Government instituted the 24-hour lockdown based on advice from health professionals and law enforcement as efforts intensify to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
