To ensure that an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) does not occur in Mabaruma, the Mayor and Town Council will be recommending that travel be restricted to and from the town considering that the locality already has three active cases and the isolation facility that was built can only accommodate a limited number of persons.
The Town Council is expected to make this recommendation to the Regional COVID-19 Task force early next week.
To date, the town has recorded four cases of COVID-19, inclusive of one recovery. The two newest cases were recorded on Thursday. The two new patients are brothers of the teacher who had tested positive for the disease after returning to the town from Santa Rosa. Several residents of the town are currently awaiting their results.
Mabaruma’s Mayor Chris Phang told Stabroek News that despite the town being the first area in the Barima-Waini region to record a case, no precautionary measures other than the restrictions imposed by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) are in place even though the town council had made recommendations.
With the possibility that COVID-19 cases might increase, Phang said that they will be recommending that travel to and from the town will be restricted for two weeks, while adding that persons are still travelling freely to and from the town.
He noted that the isolation facility can only accommodate eight persons and if the cases continue to increase, the health system will be overwhelmed.
Further, Phang stated that people in the town are not taking the disease seriously and are constantly breaching the restrictions. He added that many do not know much about the disease and such the council will be commencing a sensitising exercise today. They will also be distributing masks.
Region One has recorded at least 78 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Vincent Torres, 59, a resident of Santa Rosa, died in May after becoming infected with the disease. He is the only person to have died as a result of the disease in the region.
A dashboard set up by the Santa Rosa village council shows that the Moruca sub-region has recorded 74 cases of COVID-19 to date. Two persons have since recovered thus reducing the number of active cases in the district to 71. Communities that have recorded cases thus far are Santa Rosa, Waramuri, and Kwebanna.
Regional authorities have cautioned that many of the cases in the region are asymptomatic (not showing symptoms) which may lead people to believe that the COVID-19 threat is not real.
