No Frontline Worker Infected – Gonsalves

To date, no frontline healthcare worker in St Vincent and the Grenadines has been infected in this country’s fight against COVID-19.

Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves made this point on Good Friday, while speaking at the Argyle International Airport (AIA), where he collected a quantity of rapid kits to test for the virus.

Gonsalves described it as a blessing that “no health worker, doctor, nurse, nursing assistant, attendant, technologist, nobody in the health field, whether in private or public sector has been tested positive”.

“There have been some rumours to the contrary, not calling name, but I want to establish that. That is a blessing,” he said.

The prime minister said it was also a blessing that no person who has tested positive with COVID-19 has had a serious illness or has been at the hospital with any ventilator or any requirement for advanced medical attention.

“We have to say a thanks and that is a blessing,” Gonsalves said.   He also counted as a blessing that there have been no deaths recorded in the one-month period that the virus has been present in St Vincent.

To date, the country has recorded 12 confirmed cases of COVID-19. And the prime minister said it was a blessing that there has been no community spread as all 12 cases were imported.

“No one who has been exposed to anyone who had come from overseas has been tested thus far, positive with COVID. In fact, in the case of the person number two, who had I think 116 connections…,” Gonsalves said.

He added that ”…all of them, every connection was traced and five of those persons I’ve been advised have been put in a government facility… experts in MOH… thought that is where they should be and the person who was assessed by the medical experts closest to that individual has tested negative. That is also a blessing…”