The Ministry of Health and Wellness is currently monitoring two COVID-19 clusters on the West Coast of Barbados.
This development was revealed last evening during a press briefing to apprise the nation of the status of a large cluster of cases at Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) Dodds – 161 so far – which have been linked to a bus crawl held on Saturday, December 26, 2020.
Acting Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Kenneth George, revealed that in addition to this, there were two smaller clusters – one with seven positive cases and the other with four. Additionally, there were two other cases under investigation.
“And those clusters have been brought to the attention of the Ministry of Health, and we have put several resources in this to make sure that the contact tracing is complete. The contact tracing is not done overnight. It’s a process, and as we get more information, we will certainly pass it on to you,” he stated.
Chairman of the Cabinet Sub-committee, Senator Dr. Jerome Walcott, explained further that one of the clusters involved a visitor, while the other surrounded a worker at a hotel on the west coast.
He also pointed out that the other two cases under investigation were not clusters at this time.
“They had no positive tests. But there is a person who was positive, who went to various areas. The contact tracing has been done; some testing has been done already. Results are back; not all results are back, but there have been no positive cases linked to those [two] cases at this point in time,” Senator Walcott stated.