Wells says ministry moving into 21st Century in data collection efforts
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Minister of Health Renward Wells said yesterday health officials are looking into a faux pas that led to 85 previous cases of COVID-19 having to be added to the Ministry of Health’s COVID Dashboard recently.
“In the fog of war, sometimes some things fall through the cracks and the things that fall through the cracks can cause problems,” he told the media outside the Churchill Building.
“We are not making excuses in the ministry. Those things should have been reported, but back in September and October, during the height of the second wave, lots of cases were taking place, folks were being tested.
“We have to remember, in the Ministry of Health, COVID exposed a lot of our defects and defaults — not just in Ministry of Health but in the entire Bahamian society.
“It showed just how out of step we were with just deploying digital platforms.”
The health minister noted while a new system was put in place during the second wave, for all labs to be able to input data electronically, there were still challenges.
He said a new platform is being established to ensure data is sent instantaneously to the COVID-19 surveillance unit.
“We have moved into the 21st Century inside the Ministry of Health,” Wells added.
“It took the pandemic to move us in the direction in some of those ways but we are seeking to address those issues.”
Thirty-two of the confirmed COVID-19 cases not previously reported for New Providence were originally tested between January and mid-April 2021, and the 54 confirmed cases for Grand Bahama were originally tested between September and December 2020.
The Bahamas is experiencing a third wave of coronavirus, with noted increases in cases recently.
The country recorded 336 cases in January and 335 cases in February.
Cases nearly doubled in March with 613 cases.
This month, there have been nearly 1,000 cases.
Health officials have indicated that more contagious variants of the coronavirus likely arrived in The Bahamas since last month and have contributed to some extent to the increase in COVID cases.
Recent data also confirmed that most of the COVID-19 cases were related to international travel.
