WATCH: ‘We owe Pathology staff a huge debt of gratitude’
OVER the weekend, 40 new cases of Covid-19 were confirmed.
Director of Public Health Dr Nicola Brink explained at last week’s press conference that Public Health is pro-actively looking for cases.
She said it was the right thing to do for our jurisdiction and as a result of this, the island had a higher testing rate per capita (per 100,000 people) than other places.
The UK was testing about 10,000 people a day, or 2.46 per capita, while the island was doing about 50, or 11.67 per capita.
Now, thanks to the availability of testing capabilities on island, Public Health can turn results around in under 24 hours, which allows the team to manage situations and cases in real time.
This is a significant improvement to having to wait three or four days for results from a designated laboratory in the UK.
Yesterday [5 April] Dr Brink tweeted: ‘Pathology tested 126 samples yesterday [Saturday].
‘They are amazing, we owe them a huge debt of gratitude.’
She said the last test finished at around 10pm.
Molecular testing, nose and throat swabs, on island will greatly assist Public Health as they move forward and try to control the pandemic locally.
Latest figures [as of Sunday 5 April] show that 1109 samples have been tested. 154 results have returned positive, 871 negative and 84 are still awaiting results.
Three islanders have now died after contracting the infection and 27 of those who had tested positive have recovered.
Recovery is being defined as having no virus detectable on the patient’s nose and throat swab on day 14.
No patients are currently requiring intensive care or ventilatory support, but Public Health estimated that between 8% and 15% of total infected cases would require hospital care.
52% of those infected are males and infections have been seen in individuals aged less than one year to over 90.
It is estimated that there are 1,439 islanders under compulsory self-isolation.
This equates to about 2.2% of the island’s population.
Public Health guidance on social distancing and non-essential journeys should be followed at all times during this pandemic.
Last Tuesday it was announced that from midnight the island was in lockdown and people should only leave their homes for essential journeys and a two-hour maximum exercise slot.
An update on the lockdown is expected early this week to let islanders know if the restrictions are going to be extended.
n For the latest information visit www.gov.gg/coronavirus.
