Outbreak of COVID-19 at Princess Casino

An outbreak of COVID-19 among employees of Princess Casino has forced a temporary closure just one month after gambling establishments were allowed to resume operations.  On Saturday, personnel from the Ministry of Health and Wellness conducted tests on eighty-two staff members as part of its active surveillance and testing initiative.  What they discovered was that twenty-one tests came back positive for COVID-19, prompting the immediate re-closure of the casino.  News Five spoke with Doctor Melissa Diaz-Musa, Deputy Manager of the Central Health Region.

Melissa Diaz-Musa

Dr. Melissa Diaz-Musa, Deputy Manager, Central Health Region

“We then went into Princess Casino and we had full cooperation from all the staff at the casino and we started to swab the staff that were present there.  And at that point, I think on the Saturday, we were able to do seventy-five swabs and at that point we picked up nineteen positive cases.  Yesterday we opened up at our swabbing unit at the Central Health Region and we continued with the contact tracing and we were able to swab fifty more persons there and of those persons, eight other staff worked at the Princess Hotel.  So in total, I think for the Princess staff we’ve done eighty-five staff from Princess and of the eighty-five we have twenty-three positive cases.  So of course, with surveillance and the idea behind doing very quick surveillance is to ensure that we isolate these positive cases very quickly, we treat very quickly and detect any contacts to these persons very quickly.  So all these things are constantly ongoing right now with our team from Central Health Region.  And, in fact, today we’ve gone back just to, again, do further contact tracing and screening.”