Grenada health officials confirm persons evading quarantine
ST GEORGE’S, Grenada (CMC) — Acting Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shawn Charles, says since Grenada has reopened its borders for commercial traffic, several people from medium and high-risk zones have breached the mandatory quarantine as required by the new public health protocol.
Grenada adopted new public health protocol as a means of containing and controlling the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) and Dr Charles said “these persons have exited the quarantine facility without authorisation from a health officer.
“We have had a number of persons who have committed breaches where the quarantine is concern and we are in the process of taking the necessary legal steps against these individuals,” he said.
Under the Quarantine Law, any person who knowingly violate any section of the legislation shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a fine of EC$10,000 and to imprisonment for six months.
“We do observe that there are individuals that for different reasons are not in agreement with being quarantined and there are individuals that are finding ways to evade quarantine,” Dr Charles told reporters.
“Off course we are continuing to insist on these measures because they are design to protect the public in general and we continue to pursue the required actions against the individuals who insist on evading these public health preventative measures,” Dr Charles said.
The senior health official, for public health reasons, preferred not to provide the number of people who have engaged in the illegal act but confirmed that they were people returning from countries classified under Grenada’s COVID-19 new health protocol as medium or high-risk hotspots for the contagion.
It is understood that health and legal officials are seeking to have those people brought before the courts.
Dr Charles said that health officials are continuously revising the health protocol because of constant changes occurring all over the world in terms of daily infections and deaths related to the disease which has infected millions and caused the death of thousands worldwide.
“We are constantly looking at the protocol and looking at ways we can adjust,” Dr Charles said in a virtual news conference in which an update was provided on matters relating to the COVID-19.
This was the first update by the new COVID-19 advisory body since the COVID-19 Response Task-force terms of reference expired at the end of July 31st 2020.
At present, the health protocol exempts persons from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and Barbados from mandatory quarantine once a negative PCR test result dated no less than seven days before travel date is presented at the port of entry.
People from the wider Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries will have to spend 48 hours in quarantine once a second PCR conduct on island is negative.
People from medium risk countries which includes Canada, some European Union and Commonwealth states will have to presence a negative PCR upon arrival and conduct a second PCR immediately upon arrival.
The quarantine period will be for 10 days, but a negative result within 48 hours or within the first seven days will result in home quarantine with an agreement to allow a geo-fencing wristwatch for monitoring purposes.
High-risk countries are the United States and any other territories where there are more than 90 cases per 100,000 population. People arriving from high-risk areas will be required to show a negative PCR test, be test immediately upon arrival and spend 14 days in quarantine with the option of the last four days in home quarantine using the geo-fencing wrist wear device.