CMO: 59 covid19 patients to be relocated

Covid19 patients who are recovering or in a stable condition are to be moved from the Couva Hospital to another isolated facility.
At a press conference on Wednesday morning at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram said 59 patients have shown mild to no symptoms and there are plans to test each patient twice before releasing those who have fully recovered.

He said the Ministry of Health was looking at alternative facilities to relocate these patients as soon as possible.

The alternative facility will be “better suited for that category of patient” and only patients with medium or high levels of the virus will be kept at Couva. “That particular group, we are looking at them for seven days to see if they get to the stage of no symptoms, and as soon as they do that, I have spoken to the director to test and see if they are negative. And if they are we will do a second swab.”

This second swab will be done 24 hours after the test results from the first sample. If the results are negative the patients will be allowed to go home.On Wednesday morning, in a regional news conference, Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) executive director Joy St John said CARPHA had tested 929 cases regionally, between February and March.

Of those, 553 samples came from TT.The ministry reported five covid19 deaths, with one patient recovered and discharged, from 89 confirmed cases up to Wednesday morning.