Health Minister Comments on COVID-19 Testing

Michel Chebat

The Ministry of Health will add those test results from the private testing sites to their daily reports.  Today, four new COVID-19 related deaths were recorded along with twenty-nine new confirmed cases. The number of confirmed cases now stands at eleven thousand eight hundred and forty-five. When News Five caught up with Minister of Health Michel Chebat on Tuesday, he spoke of the increased testing countrywide and reducing positivity rate.  Since the start of 2021, the ministry has reported that over eight thousand nine hundred tests were conducted.  Those tests detected about one thousand COVID positive cases.

Michel Chebat, Minister of Health and Wellness

“As you can the testing numbers are up. Thankfully the positive rates are down so that has been working really well. We are still reaching out to some of the villages but that work is an ongoing basis.”

Hipolito Novelo

“How would you answer the criticism that you don’t see a spike or increase in positive number because we are using rapid test. The argument is that rapid test can give you false negatives if you are not symptomatic.”

Michel Chebat

“The standard practice is if you were getting a negative rapid test, you are re-swabbed to confirm the negative.”

The Ministry of Health and Wellness will be hosting a press conference on Friday at two in the afternoon to announce updates on quarantine measures. Some of the changes expected to be announced are lifting the restrictions on inter-district traveling in the north and adjusting the curfew time.