Minister for Health and Social Development Honourable Carvin Malone has warned that medical teams and public health professionals have emphasised that failure to take decisive actions towards COVID-19 will lead towards an epidemic in the Territory.     

Honourable Malone explained that since the discovery of Case #12 on August 17, health teams have garnered and investigated 219 primary and secondary contacts that are interlinked and are the cause for the small cluster cases.

The Health Minister disclosed that cases have been discovered on Tortola in areas of Huntum’s Ghut, Lower Estate, Long Bush, Cane Garden Bay, Hannah’s, Purcell Estate, Fat Hog’s Bay, Sea Cow’s Bay, Lambert’s Estate, and Road Town  with primary and secondary contacts further disbursed throughout other communities on the eastern, western and central districts and on the island of Anegada.

Honourable Malone also highlighted that 32 percent of the case contacts recently confirmed as COVID-19 positive did not display any symptoms of the disease.

“We believe that we are seeing the tip of the iceberg and there are more persons possibly infected in the population who are asymptomatic and can readily spread the disease which means that we may have many undocumented cases of who are transmitting the virus,” the Minister said. He added, “While we do not exactly know how much spread is caused by our asymptomatic group, current estimates place our undocumented cases at approximately 1,482 persons at a minimum.

Health Minister Malone further stated that restricting movements of residents for the next 14-day period will improve the chances of containing the outbreak and avoid a scenario of community spread. He also encouraged residents to boost their physical and mental health through good nutrition, physical fitness, stress management and healthy coping mechanisms.

The British Virgin Islands’ Epidemiological Summary as of September 1 includes:

3,027 total persons tested

2,965 tested negative

47 total recorded positive cases

38 total active cases

8 recoveries

1 death

15 pending results

Persons who are experiencing symptoms related to COVID-19 including fever, cough, headache, fatigue, loss of taste or smell, sore throat, muscle aches, or difficulty breathing are encouraged to contact the Medical Hotline at 852-7650 to schedule an appointment for testing. The fee has been waived except for persons requiring results for traveling purposes.