CAY HILL--Three persons in Dutch St. Maarten have so far recovered from the highly contagious coronavirus COVID-19 disease, and two persons are in critical condition at St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC), figures issued by the Department of Communications (DCOMM) on Thursday show.
According to the figures as of Wednesday, April 8, there had been117 persons in self quarantine; 200 in self isolation (persons with symptoms); 129 tested; 43 positive (29 males and 14 females); 67 negative; 19 awaiting results; 8 deceased and three recovered.
In the meantime, authorities have identified some coronavirus COVID-19 “hot spots” in the country as a result of contact tracing conducted particularly with the last sets of positive cases that were not under Collective Prevention Services (CPS) monitoring and had been “in particular segments of society.”
Prime Minister and Chairperson of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) Silveria Jacobs, who did not identify the hot spots by name during a national address on Tuesday evening, had said at the time that authorities will be going into these hot spots with a team to conduct “intense screening” to identify cases and isolate them to further mitigate the spread of the virus. She urged residents to not attach any stigma to these areas as COVID-19 does not discriminate against gender, colour or class and will continue to spread with human contact.
She issued a call on qualified health care professionals who are willing to go into the field to assist with sample collection to contact CPS as soon as possible. Authorities would appreciate as many qualified persons that it can rely on as possible to ascertain the number of persons affected in the hot spot areas. She made another call on persons who are feeling symptoms to call CPS at tel. 914 and register so that the real COVID-19 numbers for the country can be ascertained.
