New case of COVID-19 in New Providence, four “recovered”

New case of COVID-19 in New Providence, four “recovered”

NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Another case of COVID-19 has been confirmed in New Providence, bringing the total number in the country to 29.

The newly confirmed case is a 48-year-old woman with no history of travel.

The woman has been hospitalized, according to the Ministry of Health.

In its latest dashboard, the ministry lists the number of “recovered cases” as four.

In a statement, the ministry explained there were two alternative ways to define recovery from COVID-19 based United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US-CDC) guidelines — test based and non test-based strategy.

“The Test-based strategy requires that the patient is asymptomatic (no longer experiencing symptoms such as fever, cough, shortness of breath); and produce negative results,” the statement read.

“Patients who undergo the Test-based strategy may include hospitalized patients with moderate or severe disease and those with immunocompromising conditions.

“The Non test-based strategy requires that the patient: no longer has a fever and has not used fever-reducing medications within three days; shows an improvement in respiratory symptoms such as cough and shortness of breath; and has no symptoms for at least seven days since symptoms first appeared.”

The statement continued: “Patients who undergo this strategy are likely to be those considered to be mild cases that were cared for at home.

“If testing is not possible, the World Health Organization recommends that a patient be isolated at home even after symptoms have resolved until a clinician determines that the patient has “recovered”.”

The ministry added: “With these guidelines in mind, a confirmed positive COVID-19 case in The Bahamas is not considered “recovered” until a patient has fully satisfied at least one of the conditions mentioned above.”

As of Sunday, there are 23 cases in New Providence, five in Grand Bahama, and one from Bimini.

About Ava Turnquest

Ava Turnquest is the head of the Digital Department at Eyewitness News. Her most notable beat coverage spans but is not limited to politics, immigration and human rights, with a focus especially on minority groups. In 2018, she was nominated by the Bahamas Press Club for “The Eric Wilmott Award for Investigative Journalism”. Ava is deeply motivated by her passion about the role of fourth estate, and uses her pen to inform, educate and sensitize the public.