Chief Medical Officer Dr Shamdeo Persaud today lamented the “almost runaway” situation with COVID-19 here and noted by contrast the declining number of cases in sister CARICOM countries.

An edited version of Dr Persaud’s statement at the Ministry of Public Health’s daily update follows:

The Ministry is gravely concerned with the alarming situation emerging just across and along our borders, as our indigenous brothers and sisters are at extremely high risk for the influx of imported cases and for contracting the disease.

Please note that our sister CARICOM countries have begun to see a decline in their numbers, yet we have an almost runaway situation – over the past four days, twelve new cases were confirmed.

Our efforts in limiting the spread of this disease are dependent on all of us, if we do not want to end up as the PAHO model indicated with an exponential rise in positive cases and deaths that will overwhelm our health system.

We are also working feverishly with all other facilities that house the elderly to contain the disease…

As of today, our COVID-19 deaths remain at eleven (11) and the number of confirmed remains at 139.