Government’s policy decision to retest arriving passengers for COVID-19 at the seven-day mark continues to pay dividends. Three more Ghanaian nurses tested positive for COVID-19 after being retested yesterday.
They are among 95 nurses who arrived from the West African country on July 30 in response to an outreach by the Barbados Government for specialist nurses to help bolster the nursing complement in the island.
Nine of the nurses tested positive for the viral illness immediately on arrival, and have been in isolation at Harrison Point, St. Lucy, ever since.
The others, who have been in quarantine at south coast hotels, were all retested yesterday, with three positive results. The two men and one woman have been transferred to the isolation facility.
Meanwhile, the number of confirmed cases in Barbados has risen by five. In addition to the three new cases, Barbados is including in its figures two people who arrived in the island last Saturday as in transit passengers but whose positive test results came back before they boarded their connecting flights, and so they were placed in isolation in Barbados.
As a result, there are now a total of 138 confirmed cases and 31 people in isolation. One hundred people have recovered and seven have died.
There were 337 tests done by the Best-dos Santos Public Health Laboratory yesterday, bringing the total number performed since February 11 to 12,570.
