SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI and KEVON FLEM­INE

There were nine new pos­i­tive COVID-19 cas­es re­port­ed yes­ter­day.

Of this fig­ure, four cas­es were re­port­ed to be con­tacts of re­cent­ly pos­i­tive COVID-19 pa­tients with the re­main­ing five pend­ing epi­demi­o­log­i­cal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

This, ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Health 10 am and 6 pm COVID-19 dai­ly up­dates.

The to­tal num­ber of pos­i­tive cas­es now stands at 182 with 40 pa­tients hos­pi­talised at both Cau­ra and Cou­va Hos­pi­tals.

Ques­tioned about the first sev­en new cas­es re­port­ed in yes­ter­day’s 10 am up­date, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said< “last night we set­tled the new reg­u­la­tions with the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al... from to­day which would drop the num­ber of per­sons in pub­lic gath­er­ings from 25 to 10.”

Young said he was aware that a prison of­fi­cer has been test­ed pos­i­tive, stat­ing that the pris­ons have been ad­her­ing to all health pro­to­cols.

He said for­tu­nate­ly, the prison of­fi­cer was not at work.

“He had just come in­to the ad­min­is­tra­tion to get some­thing done. He was on va­ca­tion. We are track­ing down the pri­ma­ry con­tacts. I want to keep the pris­ons free of COVID and we will do all that we have to.”

Young said a fire of­fi­cer al­so con­tract­ed the virus last week.

He said the coun­try has been hav­ing reim­port­ed cas­es ( those who come in­to the coun­try) which have been in­creas­ing the fig­ures.

The spike, he said could pos­si­bly be “per­sons who have come back in ...com­plet­ed their quar­an­tine but has been asymp­to­matic whilst in quar­an­tine and them come out.”

Young said there are “cas­es around the world where per­sons 47 days lat­er then test pos­i­tive.”

Yes­ter­day, the Health Min­istry gave in­struc­tions to close the Mon­trose Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School due to con­tact of a COVID case.

The min­istry, in a re­lease, said there was a need to quar­an­tine all chil­dren who at­tend­ed the school for SEA class­es.

A re­lease is­sued by the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (Gen­der and Child Af­fairs) yes­ter­day said to­geth­er with the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty they have been work­ing with man­age­ment of the St Jude’s School for Girls’ fol­low­ing two pos­i­tive COVID-19 cas­es at the fa­cil­i­ty.

The re­lease stat­ed that the Health Min­istry con­duct­ed the tests fol­low­ing re­ports that a child and a staff mem­ber were pre­sent­ed with flu-like symp­toms.

The school has since im­ple­ment­ed all health pro­to­cols to en­sure the health and well be­ing of the chil­dren and staff, while par­ents, guardians and care­givers have been no­ti­fied of the sit­u­a­tion.

Mean­while, there was con­cern among South­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice of­fi­cers as 14 of their col­leagues are now un­der self-quar­an­tine, fol­low­ing some con­tact with con­firmed COVID-19 cas­es.

In the past week, both the Moru­ga and Bar­rack­pore Po­lice Sta­tions were tem­porar­i­ly locked down and sani­tised fol­low­ing no­tices from the Min­istry of Health.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the Min­istry asked at least one per­son to sub­mit to a na­sopha­ryn­geal swab yes­ter­day.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, a con­sta­ble worked at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing and walk­a­bout in the Moru­ga dis­trict on Fri­day night.

By Sat­ur­day morn­ing, he got a call from the Min­istry of Health in­form­ing him that a fe­male fam­i­ly mem­ber test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus, and pub­lic health of­fi­cers may soon call him for test­ing.

Dur­ing con­tact trac­ing, the min­istry found that he had in­ter­act­ed with about eight oth­er of­fi­cers.

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent last week, the min­istry con­tact­ed a con­sta­ble at the Bar­rack­pore Po­lice Sta­tion, in­form­ing him that two of his friends from the Moru­ga area test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus.

In trac­ing the con­tacts of the of­fi­cer, who lives in Princes Town, the min­istry ad­vised four women con­sta­bles and a con­sta­ble to self-quar­an­tine. Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, South­ern Di­vi­sion Snr Supt Wayne Mo­hammed con­firmed the in­ci­dents, say­ing that they en­sured sani­tis­ing of both sta­tions. Mo­hammed said the pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary con­tacts of the con­firmed COVID-19 cas­es went in­to self-quar­an­tine as they await fur­ther in­struc­tions from the min­istry.

While there was con­cern about spread among of­fi­cers in the di­vi­sion, Mo­hammed said his charges are aware of their role in this pan­dem­ic and re­main com­mit­ted.