Dominica: No local COVID-19 case discovered in 3 months

Roseau, Dominica: National Epidemiologist Dr. Shlauddin Ahemd declared in a press conference on Tuesday that an additional three coronavirus cases were identified on January 09.

Dr. Ahmed stated that all these three cases are imported and detected through day 05 testing at the quarantine facility. He noted that currently, these patients are asymptomatic.

After discovering these three coronavirus patients, the active number of coronavirus cases in Dominica is now seven.

Dr. Ahmed shared the statistics of recoveries and mentioned over 102 people have successfully recovered from the contagious various on the Caribbean island.

Dominica has performed over 80140 PCR tests since the first case arrived in March 2020.

"The positivity rate in these PCR testing in Dominica is 1.3 percent, which is one of the lowest in the Caribbean," stated Dr. Ahmed.

Dr. Ahmed noted that the lower the positivity rate is, the better it is.

Furthermore, the national epidemiologist stated that no local coronavirus cases had been detected in the country for the last three months.

As per Dr. Ahmed, the last local COVID-19 positive was discovered in mid-November 2020. However, there have been no incidents after that.

Dr. Ahmed stated that there is no alternative to prevention measures if everyone wants Dominica to stay open instead of lockdown.

Referring to the statistics, Dr. Ahmed asserted that wearing a face mask in public places makes it 97% percent safe, and any distance less than three feet have a 13% chance of contracting the contagious coronavirus.

He advised people to maintain respiratory etiquette- sneeze in a tissue or cover your face with an elbow while sneezing.

"Avoid touching surfaces outside of your homes, avoid public gatherings and handshakes," added Dr. Ahmed.

Besides this, he mentioned that the recent surge of coronavirus cases in Caribbean countries results from massive mass gatherings.