'TT should get covid19 passing grade'

HEALTH Minister Terrence Deyalsingh believes TT should get "a passing grade" for its efforts so far to prevent the spread of covid19 pandemic.

But Deyalsingh said this is no time to rejoice, but remain focused on keeping the virus at bay and not believe there will be any imminent reopening of the country on April 30.

At the virtual news conference on Wednesday, Deyalsingh admitted TT would have failed in a few areas such as covid19 parties.

Saying Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasaram will soon advise Government on how TT had dealt with the pandemic to date, Deyalsingh said there was still time for TT to improve its perfomance and he hoped the country would get a B-plus for its efforts.

Deyalsingh said it was significant that 63 surveillance tests done from April 14 have all come back as negative.

He also reported there were 1,195 unique covid19 cases, 230 repeat cases, 1.425 samples tested by CARPHA, 115 positive samples, eight people have died and 37 people have been discharged.

Deyalsingh said six of the 12 covid19 facilities in the parallel system are currently in use.

Reiterating the issue of false negatives and some private labs recording such results when testing for covid19, Deyalsingh highlighted the death of a 13-year-old American, Charlotte Figgy, to underscore this point. He said Figgy died of pneumonia but it was first believed she had covid19 symptoms.