Barbados to ramp up testing for COVID-19

Nation News – Barbados will ramp up testing for the coronavirus (COVID-19) in the coming days after receiving an additional 27,000 test kits and 2,800 much-needed swabs required to complete sample kits for the flu-like disease.

Minister of Health Jeffrey Bostic also disclosed yesterday that the country had more than enough ventilators to treat severely ill patients and would be moving infected people over the next few days to the just opened isolation facility at Harrison Point, St Lucy.

He was speaking at a press conference yesterday as health authorities basked in the news that the island had not registered any new COVID-19 cases for a fifth straight day and was sending home four more people who had successive negative tests for the virus.

The minister would not release any information on how the front-line worker who tested positive might have been exposed to COVID-19, but he indicated that with testing to be increased, there was all likelihood essential workers might eventually be swabbed.