ST GEORGE’S, Grenada (CMC) — Grenada today announced six new cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and urged the population to continue to follow the guidelines outlined by health officials in a bid to stop the spread of the virus that has killed more than 18,000 people worldwide.

Health Minister Nickolas Steele told a news conference that among the six cases are people who came in some form of contact with the island’s first recorded case. The ages of the one man and five women are between 50 and 80 years-old.

“The six new people are now in isolation and being monitored by health officials. The ministry continues with aggressive contact tracing in an effort to ascertain and mitigate further spread of the virus,” he said.

Steele said that at least one of the new cases is imported, and that the person “was on the same flight, within a six foot radius, of patient zero, our original case. The other cases are from the same household as patient zero”.

“Again, I assure you, that our medical team has been actively following up and engaged in contact tracing; and are already moving to isolate and monitor several others who were in close contact with any of these new cases. This will continue for the next 14 days, at least.”

The health minister said that the persons are all exhibiting mild symptoms at this time, “so we are encouraged, but definitely not complacent”.

He said that patient zero, who was hospitalized earlier this week, “is now again stable and her symptoms are back to being mild to moderate”.