Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony today confirmed that there has been a mild outbreak of Covid-19 at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) whereby “a number of persons” have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
INews was told that than 70 persons, including doctors and other medical staff, have so far tested positive. Tests are continuing for other staffers.
“There are a number of persons who have tested positive, both doctors and other medical staff. We have been constantly monitoring and we have taken other mitigation measures. It has not had a big impact so far on service delivery but if more and more people get sick, then obviously it’s going to have an impact, but so far with the persons who got sick, we’re monitoring them. Most of them are either asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and we expect that they will return to work shortly,” Dr Anthony said.
He was at the time responding to questions during his daily update on the Covid-19 situation in the country.
At this time, it is unclear how many of the infected employees are unvaccinated. The Health Minister also did not disclose the exact number of persons who are affected.
Research has shown that the Omicron variant is causing more severe symptoms among the unvaccinated.
It was only on Sunday that the Health Minister met with the GPHC Management to discuss additional measures to be taken to protect both patients and staff from the Omicron variant.
Efforts to contact GPHC officials as well as other health personnel for more information on this matter are providing futile.
