Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, who has been in quarantine receiving treatment for COVID-19 for a week, is still positive.
The Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) confirmed this yesterday via a release giving an update on Rowley’s condition.
Rowley went to Tobago on the Tuesday prior to the Easter weekend. He subsequently began displaying flu-like symptoms and tested positive for the disease last Tuesday.
He was quarantined at the Prime Minister’s official residence at Blenheim and is being treated by Tobago Regional Health Authority doctors. He had an MRI last week to ascertain his lung function.
Yesterday, the OPM stated that yesterday marked one week since Rowley “had been quarantined for 14 days since he first showed symptoms last Monday night.”
The OPM added, “(Yesterday) morning he was swabbed and tested. Results indicate that he is still positive for the virus and therefore will remain in quarantine at Blenheim House in Tobago observing all the required health protocols under the care and observation of the medical staff of the Tobago Regional Health Authority.”
Last Saturday after Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s contentions about MPs becoming ill after contact with Government MPs who were in Tobago like Rowley, he’d clarified the situation.
Rowley confirmed he had no symptoms on March 26 and March 27 “as untruthfully presented by the Opposition Leader in her quest to politicise my medical condition.” He said his flu-like symptoms first appeared on the night of April 5 and he was tested and confirmed positive for COVID-19 on the morning of April 6.
Rowley said the standard protocol is that once symptoms are observed, they will check contacts two to three days prior. He added this meant that the contacts in Parliament on March 26 and at a press conference on March 27 don’t qualify under the protocols for tracing. He said this was why Persad-Bissessar “had to lie to make the case that there was a breach of the protocols and breaking of laws by the Government officials.”
Since becoming ill, Rowley, 71, has continued work, including issuing statements, chairing last week’s Cabinet session - which ministers said was a marathon session -, meeting virtually with international energy players and handling Caricom issues.
Caricom chairman Rowley has been closely following last Friday’s eruption of the Soufriere volcano in St Vincent and the Grenadines. Rowley, a volcanologist, had worked there. He had done a paper on the Stratigraphy and Geochemistry of that volcano.
Last Friday’s explosive eruptions have continued in St Vincent and part of the volcano’s cone is said to have collapsed now.
Last Sunday, Rowley posted on his Facebook page a picture of the deep layers of ash covering an area in St Vincent.
Yesterday, he also posted a picture of the village of Fitz Huges. The post stated: “This village of Fitz Hughes is where I lived when I worked on the Leeward side of the volcano.
“The Larikai valley leads up to the lowest point on the rim of the volcano and therefore most susceptible to pyroclastic flows spilling down to the sea on the western side. It happened during the eruption of 1979.”