BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Tuesday 14^th April 2020)-The two latest coronavirus patients who got the illness from local spread- one of whom is a close contact of someone in isolation and the other a relative of a suspected case- were reportedly already in quarantine when their test results came back positive, taking the Federation’s count to 14 cases now.

At the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) COVID-19 Daily Briefing held on Tuesday 14^th April 2020, Junior Minister of Health Senator Wendy Phipps gave the fresh local update involving 12 samples sent to The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) on Monday13^th April.

“These are from persons of 12 contacts who were already placed on quarantine when their contacts received the confirmation of their tests results. The results were received today –in very quick time-and of the 12 tests, 10 were negative and 2 were positive. These persons tested positive were already in quarantine and will remain in isolation as of per our protocol that has been put in place from the very beginning,” she said.

Phipps added: “These two cases reside on St.Kitts and of these two cases, one was a close contact of a positive case and was already in quarantine as stated earlier. The second one, however, is a family member of a suspected case already in quarantine and…these two positive cases represent the local spread of the virus within that household; it doesn’t say within our community…”

The Junior  Health Minister said all 14 patients are doing well.

“We continue with our vigorous contact tracing and quarantine and isolation procedures in order to keep the virus under control and we continue to stress the importance of personal responsibility in our efforts to control this disease. We are thankful, however, that all of the positive cases are doing well and recovering, and that we have had no hospital admissions or deaths with regards to COVID-19.”

To date 234 persons have been tested with the 14 positive results; 10 are in St.Kitts and 4 on Nevis.

A total of 187 confirmed negatives have been received with some 33 results still pending.

Additionally, 20 persons are quarantined in a government facility while 111 are quarantined at home, 14 in isolation and 552 persons released from quarantined.

“…these two positive cases represent the local spread of the virus within that household; it doesn’t say within our community…”- Junior Minister of Health Senator Wendy Phipps