And if those tests also come back negative tomorrow, we would be at day 26 without a positive sample for COVID 19 being taken.
28 days is an important benchmark, because according to public health professionals it would mean the end of an outbreak. Â
But, what really does this signal, and what does it mean for all of us, living under curfew, or some type of quarantine? Â
Yesterday, the director of health Services told Jules Vasquez it definitely does not mean that it’s time to relax because there are new cases coming over the event horizon:
Dr. Marvin Manzanero - Director of Health Services
"I think one of the primary messages Jules beyond not having any other case would be hoping that we have learned something as a society, as a health system, as a government if you will because this should have allowed us ample time to have prepared adequately because you are right this might be one outbreak, a wave. This might be the first one of what we anticipate might be more cases for sure this year. We are not living in a bubble. We can anticipate that we are gonna have further waves throughout 2020."
Jules Vasquez
"Now we know that St. Lucia had reported, had reached a 0 case situation and then probably 5 days or a week later it reported the appearance of two cases which were related to other cases. Do you have any such fears in this case especially considering the fact that we are right now so far away from the last positive test, which was 25 days ago?"
Dr. Marvin Manzanero
"It can still happen that wouldn’t surprise us. What would surprise me would be if we find a case that isn’t linked to those other identified cases because then you’d really have to go back to the drawing board and do an entire mapping exercise. If you are able to link any potential case to those ones then, well you can establish a link understanding that people can be virus shredders for a period because you can have people that can still be shedding a virus after 21 days, 38 days, 37 days in some literature reviews so that will be a surprise if we identify community transmission that had previously not been identified.
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