Dahl-Regis: We don’t know when COVID-19 pandemic will end

Dahl-Regis: We don’t know when COVID-19 pandemic will end
  • Health consultant says The Bahamas continues to make “significant progress”

  • Average cases per day drop by nearly half this week compared to last week

NASSAU, BAHAMAS — While she said the elusive question of when the novel coronavirus pandemic will end in The Bahamas remain unknown, health experts have been encouraged by the “significant progress” made to date to flatten the curve of new cases in recent days.

“You have heard that we are making progress,” Dahl-Regis announced during a broadcasted press conference yesterday.

“We are often asked, when is this going to be over?” she continued.

“We don’t know. But based on the cases we had to date and the models, we are making significant progress if we keep to the number of new cases on a daily basis.

“We see very little deviation from that fit.”

There has been some respite of cases in recent days.

Two women tested positive for the virus on Sunday.

There were no new cases on Monday or Tuesday.

A new case was confirmed yesterday after a 29-year-old woman from New Providence tested positively for the virus.

This places the average number of cases between Sunday and Thursday at 1.3 per day, compared to the average of 2.4 cases per day between last week Sunday and last week Thursday.

Cumulative models presented yesterday show showed a flattening of the curve of new cases and deaths in the last week.

To date, there have been 11 COVID-19-related deaths.

The last two COVID-19-related deaths were recorded on April 23 after a 53-year-old and a 51-year-old, both of whom were men, died.

Twenty-five people had recovered as of yesterday.

The recovery period — from the onset of symptoms to being classified as recovered — ranges from five days to 34 days, according to data modeling.

Of the 81 confirmed cases, there have been 65 cases in New Providence, eight in Bimini, seven in Grand Bahama and one in Cat Cay.

Geo-mapping of cases and contact tracing in New Providence shows the majority of cases appear to be concentrated in central, eastern, and southern New Providence.

In Grand Bahama, cases and their contacts appear to be concentrated in Williams Town, Bahamas Terrace and Bahamia West; and in Alice Town and Bailey Town in Bimini.

To combat the spread of the virus, the country was placed under a public state or emergency, beginning on March 17.

A 24-hour curfew, weekend lockdowns and strict social distancing measures remain in place until May 30.

Health officials have said these measures, particularly the lockdown periods have yielded results and prevented additional cases that were projected.

West Grand Bahama and Bimini MP Pakesia Parker-Edgecombe called for a two-week lockdown on Bimini this week, as she expressed grave concern about Bimini emerging as a hotspot.

Asked about the proposed measure yesterday, Dahl-Regis said health officials were awaiting the results of 76 additional COVID-19 tests performed on the island over the past two days.

“Based on our findings and the number of contacts who are symptomatic or being affected by the cases we already have, that proposition will be brought to the Ministry of Health and to the government of The Bahamas,” Dahl-Regis said.

About Royston Jones Jr.

Royston Jones Jr. is a senior digital reporter and occasional TV news anchor at Eyewitness News. Since joining Eyewitness News as a digital reporter in 2018, he has done both digital and broadcast reporting, notably providing the electoral analysis for Eyewitness News’ inaugural election night coverage, “Decision Now 2021”.

3 comments

While Bahamians grimaced with bewilderment and awe during the month of February as they listened to World News alarms concerning a new virus, the overwhelming public sentiment expressed was, “That’s old story. Them things I feel in my body, I done had that.”
The Bahamas Government has yet to come to the common Bahamian citizen, and find out what has happened on the ground in our communities and ask, “Have you experienced a strange flu from October 2019?”
Hardware Store Workers, Hotel Workers, Bay Street Shops, Church Congregations, deaths in families, members of our National Security, the general workforce and public at large. The barometer on the ground would paint an all Bahamian unique, true picture from which we could make a realistic assessment and gauges toward a clearer picture of our exposure, origin, pattern, causes, characteristics, transmission or epidemiology among of Bahamians fall to sickness.
The Bahamas probably experienced a peek height of illness in mid February. By using Spooling Technique, unscientific, but listening to the cries and loud noises in the public market on the ground up to our March 2020 lockdown, calculation dictates that well over 100,000 adult Bahamians already had Covid-19 symptoms of flash fevers, burning throats, breathing tightness, joint pains, and sadly for some families, death during a flu.
It is scientifically postulated that lockdowns prevent persons from virus exposure and actually awaits their infection while those already exposed would have developed herd immunity. Lockdowns to the non exposed persons is expected to produce second wave of mass sickness phenomena thus prolonging and causing avoidable further crisis. Information direct from our population might produce a different model than the foreign, mathematical, computer exponential projection imposed upon our national sovereignty.
If nonexistent national statistics or consensus reveal that Nassau passed its peek as a confined 7X21 little island early in the year then we should see no second wave. Questions arise about the impending outlook for or Southern Bahamian Islands.
And if WHO equation model had included the 8 million workers who will die based on the UN Labour calculations because of their global shutdown, we could only wonder.
Carlton Robinson May 1st.,2020

As a South Florida Boater, and a big fan of the Bahamas and the Bahamian people and culture, this Virus has impaled all of us. We cannot wait for a better outcome and look forward to the day that we can come back to Paradise, to help support the local communities and business’s.
Unfortunately we can only wait for the Government to reopen the Islands to Fishermen and Tourists alike.
Stay safe and we will be there for you all when the right time comes.!!!!!!!

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