Dahl-Regis: Latest COVID-19 case was a missing contact

NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Dr Merceline Dahl-Regis, health consultant to the Office of the Prime Minister, today confirmed the country’s latest COVID-19 case was a missing contact who had to be tracked down with help from law enforcement.

The country’s latest case, a 50-year-old man, was confirmed yesterday.

At a press conference, Dahl-Regis said the patient is a worker at Sandilands, who had been previously identified as a contact but “disappeared”.

“This person was known to health,” she said.

“He is the contact of a family member, contact tracing was initially challenged admittedly because he went back to work and then disappeared.”

Dahl-Regis continued: “Surveillance was assisted by Royal Bahamas Defense Force, the Royal Bahamas Police Force and Emergency Medical services and I’m pleased to report to you that he is in a mandated government quarantine facility.

“We will continue contact tracing at his place of work and it will be challenging but we’re up to it.”

She said: “We will report back with the success of the contact tracing. There is no need for fear. The surveillance team is well-positioned to manage this. And this is not the first case that we’ve had at that institution.”

Officials revealed last week that 15 quarantined individuals who were potentially exposed to the novel coronavirus could not be located.

At today’s press conference, Dahl-Regis said: “In terms of the number of persons whom we have not been able to contact, we have their names but we don’t have the contact numbers the telephone numbers for them and that has been the challenge and it still hovers between 13 and 15.”