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by pltm
(PLTM) - Minister for Health and Social Development, Hon. Carvin Malone is threatening to impose further measures on the population if the number of COVID-19 infections continues to rise.
He said in an update on Friday, January 7, that the British Virgin Islands has 1,049 active, positive cases and out of that figure, 109 are healthcare workers.
“There is almost zero, no business that has not been affected. There is almost no household that is unaffected in this particular time, no families,” he said.
The Minister continued: “We are confident that if our people were to do their part, if our people were to adhere to the measures that are put in place, there will be no need for curfews. But that is in your hands because we have healthcare professionals that are stricken, 13 hospitalizations when we were zero on December 1st. We have a situation where if this gets out of hand, we have no choice but to implement further measures.”
At the time of his update, the Minister said Cabinet only decided that the crowd size now be limited to 1 person for every 9 square feet, no more than 100 persons. In the event that there is a need for an increase in the aforementioned figure, permission must first be sought from the Ministry.
“While we begin to recover, we have to look at the rate of increases that we have in positive cases, because it is these new cases that will begin to multiply and until we get these numbers down, until we get the number of new cases down to a manageable amount, then we will always have an increase in cases. We must take the opportunity to be responsible for our success in this COVID-19 era,” he added.
