Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony has warned that Covid-19 infected persons who are isolating at home can be prosecuted if they breach guidelines which they have been instructed to follow.
As of September 20, 2021, there were 3505 in home isolation.
“Once people have tested positive, you have to be in home isolation and then for you to come out of home isolation you need to be cleared by one of the doctors in your region. So, generally once you’ve tested positive, we wait for about ten days, after those ten days, once you don’t have signs or symptoms over the last two [days], then you can be discharged. So, some people observe it in a very strict manner, others don’t,” Dr Anthony explained.
But he warned that if persons are found to be breaching those guidelines, they can be prosecuted.
“Under the orders we have specified…once you’re not obeying these, rules then you can be prosecuted,” he said.
However, the Minister did not go into details about the monitoring system in place to ensure that persons isolating at home follow the rules. Additionally, he did not disclose whether anyone has ever been prosecuted for breaching the home isolation measures.
Meanwhile, he said there is a worrying issue now with persons not coming forward to get tested.
“In some cases, they would display signs and symptoms but they just don’t want to be tested because testing would confirm that they do have Covid and maybe they would have to abide by the rules,” Dr Anthony posited.
“So if they don’t know, then they’re in denial. But the problem is they are going to infect a lot of people around them,” the Minister further explained.
Nevertheless, the Minister is urging people to get tested as there are sites located across the country, mainly at each regional hospital.
To date, the country has seen 29,683 positive cases recorded.
