Covid19 health system full with hundreds in quarantine

The parallel health care system to deal with covid19 cases will be at full capacity for the next two weeks.

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said with the 306 on board the Royal Caribbean cruise ship, Enchantment of the Seas, and over 200 UWI students set to return this week, he hoped no one in TT would test positive.

Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards, acting principal medical officer in charge of institutions, added that during a 12-hour period on Friday, 336 people were managed and quarantined, including 306 from the cruise ship, 29 from Venezuela, and one separate individual who was given an exemption to return to TT.

Richards said 370 additional nationals would arrive between Saturday and June 17. These would include 142 UWI students from the Mona campus and other tertiary institutions in Jamaica to be quarantined at the UWI St Augustine campus.

“We have persons from two cruise ships, smaller groups, who received their exemptions and would be coming in on the 15th of June as well.”

Deyalsingh added if a positive test occurred at a facility, there was a protocol of a two-week sanitisation and quarantine process so the decision to bring in more nationals would depend on test results of those already scheduled to return.