NATIONAL epidemiologist Dr Karen Webster Kerr says the country could see an increase in the number of COVID-19 patients discharged from hospital in the coming days.

Speaking during the Ministry of Health’s weekly COVID Conversations yesterday, she said this is as a result of a change in the protocol for declaring individuals COVID-19-free and discharging them from isolation.

“We have moved from a lab-based discharge, in that in the early part of the outbreak you had to have two negative consecutive swabs to be discharged, [but] we have moved away from that because the science is showing that a lot of these cases, after 10 or 14 days, are really dead particles,” she explained during the virtual press conference.

Dr Webster Kerr said this new protocol would eliminate personal challenges for people, such as being out of work while they await two-consecutive negative results.

“What it’s showing is that we don’t need to do that, so once the person has done 14 days and at least three of those, they don’t have symptoms before discharging; so over the next few days you may see an increase in the number of recovery as we move forward,” she said.

Up to yesterday, there were 1,051 people recorded as recovered from the virus, out of a total of 3,511 confirmed cases.

Meanwhile, Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton advised that a meeting is scheduled for next week with various experts, to take a decision on an approach that includes rapid antibody testing.

“There are different manufacturers but there is some value in the use of both the antigen and PCR [polymerase chain reaction] testing. I’ve asked for all the respective experts to come together to have a serious dialogue, and a decision will be taken on where we go as it relates to testing. I do anticipate that we will have a much clearer position, and this is the right time to have that position,” he said.

— Alphea Saunders