ST GEORGE’S – The government of Grenada has extended a 24-hour mandatory curfew to April 20.
The curfew should have ended on Monday.
Under the new regulations for the limited State of Emergency, residents must be confined to their homes for 14 days.
“This period is to ensure we do all that we can to save lives, we have entered a crucial phase in terms of the spread of COVID in our country,” said COVID Response Coordinator, Dr George Mitchell.
“We believe that if we take this measure that we are about to take or taking, it will give us a really, really good opportunity to see where we are in terms of ensuring and minimising community spread.”
Mitchell, who was speaking during a news conference on Monday. explained that the time from incubation to displaying symptoms varies and based on the time that those who were tested positive were confirmed, this new 14 day period will be crucial to identifying new cases of people who were possibly exposed and whose exposure could result in community spreading of the virus.
“So, during that period we are also going to use the opportunity to do some testing.”
It was also revealed that a collaboration between four health public agencies have given the country the ability to conduct testing for COVID-19.
“Yes, we are in a position to do testing in Grenada . . . once samples are collected, we can run them and have the result the same day,” he said while pointing out that all of the preliminary work and logistics have been put in place.
“I have been in contact with the folks at St George’s University who in collaboration with our lab techs at the hospital have done the run and reruns of those machines that will be used for testing, all the control have been done, so to speak and we are ready to go,” he said.
Before the ability to test on the island, Grenada’s samples were tested at the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) laboratory in Trinidad and Tobago.
The samples were sent using the service of regional carrier LIAT or the Regional Security Services aircraft and took at least 48 hours to return.
The machines used to test for COVID-19, came to the island through a joint initiative of Canadian Bank Note and the National Lottery Authority while testing kits were donated by St George’s University. The other collaborating agencies are the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), the Windward Islands Research and Education Institute and CARPHA. (CMC)
