Though COVID-19 cases have been steadily increasing in recent weeks, Doctors Hospital Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sheena Antonio-Collie said the majority of COVID-positive patients who have been presenting at the facility have not been ill with COVID.

“In our environment right now, [what] we have been seeing at Doctors Hospital is an increase in patients who are coming in with COVID as what we call a secondary diagnosis,” she said.

“So, in other words, those patients are infected with COVID, but they are not ill with COVID. So, they’re coming in with other reasons.

“… We test everyone who is being admitted to our facility for COVID-19 and we’re having a few more cases of people who are infected with COVID-19.

“Those patients are not at this time requiring any treatment for COVID. For the most part, many of them don’t even require oxygen therapy at this time unless it is for their primary diagnosis.”

Antonio-Collie added, “So, what’s happened now is, it’s less resource-intensive. So, it hasn’t been pulling on our resources in terms of human resources, or in terms of medications and treatments.

“Our Doctors Hospital West facility remains closed at this time because any patient who has COVID, we’re able to facilitate them in our negative pressure and isolation areas in the main hospital.”

After months of low numbers following the fourth wave of COVID, cases and daily positivity rates began increasing earlier this month.

Hospitalizations, however, have remained low compared to previous surges. As of Sunday, 10 people were hospitalized with COVID in The Bahamas.

None of them were at Doctors Hospital and none of them were in intensive care.

Antonio-Collie said, however, the hospital is beginning to see an impact on staffing numbers as a result of exposures. 

“We have a lot of issues in terms of human resources and staffing in terms of the various employment areas, and even our own in the hospital starting to see a few challenges — not as bad as it was with the Omicron in the winter but, still, we’re just seeing that increase in that pull on people remaining home and clusters and groups because of symptoms of COVID-19.”

FOR the past five consecutive weeks the Caribbean has experienced a rise in new COVID-19 infections, according to Pan American Health Organisation Director Dr Carissa Etienne yesterday.

This has equated to a 9.3 percent raise in cases and a 49 percent increase in deaths.

During a virtual press briefing yesterday, she warned: “COVID is again on the rise in the Americas”.

She went on to note: “New infections and fatalities of COVID-19 have been rising steadily over the past four weeks. Last week, our region reported more than 918,000 cases - a 27.2 percent increase compared with the previous week. Over 3,500 deaths were reported. COVID-19 hospitalisations increased in 18 countries, and admissions to Intensive Care Units rose in 13 countries and territories.”

She added that more than half of the infections were reported in North America where cases have been climbing for the past seven weeks. The surge is driven by new infections in the United States which recorded more than 605,000 cases, which is a 33 percent increase.

Central America saw the largest rise in cases with infections soaring by 80 percent.

“Across the Caribbean, COVID-19 cases have been increasing for five consecutive weeks with a raise of 9.3 percent in cases and a jump in deaths of 49 percent as compared with the previous week. Fourteen countries and territories in the Caribbean reported increases in hospitalisations,” Dr Etienne said.

This comes as health officials last week previously said the country is in another surge of COVID-19.

Asked what should be in place to deal with the case increases, Director of Health Emergencies Dr Ciro Ugarte noted the recommendation for continued surveillance.

He said: “We need to take into account and remember that the pandemic is not over yet and all individual collective precautions, including health and social measures, must be in place, but also they must be adopted to the level of transmission also to the new cases that are reported, the availability of health services and, of course, the vaccination coverage, particularly for the population at higher risk to develop severe disease or death.

“In that regard, we recommend continued active surveillance for early detection of new cases, particularly the community level.”

Asked what touristic countries like The Bahamas should do as the pandemic rages on, Dr Ugarte said:

“Each country must adopt corresponding measures to protect their own population and continue to reduce the national and international transmission of COVID-19. At the end it comes to the adoption of the most efficient measures that will continue to reduce transmission and social and economic impact of the pandemic.”

He added that actions for early detection must be implemented to ensure the protection of those who will come into contact with visitors.

“So it is important to establish that surveillance that we have already mentioned several times because in large epidemics when the virus is already present in the countries the most important feature is to early detect the cases that are community level and implement all the measures to reduce the transmission and control those surges,” he said.

A LOCAL infectious disease expert said 65 percent of the new COVID-19 cases in the last epidemiological week were transmitted locally.

Ministry of Health and Wellness’ National HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease Programme director Dr Nikkiah Forbes explained yesterday that officials look at these things from week to week.

Her comments came as Free National Movement Chairman and former Health Minister Dr Duane Sands last week raised concerns about the recent uptick of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country, insisting the true number of infections could be higher.

He claimed that this is due to “a substantial number” of unreported positive rapid antigen tests.

Dr Forbes acknowledged that officials have noticed an uptick in the average number of cases that are being diagnosed.

Asked if the country is facing a surge, Dr Forbes answered: “We have to monitor the situation because certainly COVID and what’s happening in the global space and at home here (is) changing.

“So, we know that there are emerging variants certainly. We have these omicron and omicron sub-variants that we know that are even more infectious.

“And so, we do have to watch that and we do have to be mindful as we see surges in other locations that we need to consider that this uptick might result in one but what we do now makes a difference. How we, for example, adhere to recommendations but we are monitoring it. There has been a slight increase over a number of weeks now.

“The majority of cases are actually local transmission. They’re not mainly travel related. There are some travel related cases.”

“When looked in the last epidemiological week, it was 65 percent,” she said when asked about the percentage of local transmissions.

“When you consider that, remember that these things can vary. We look at these things from week to week. Then again, the percentage of positive from whichever various sources that also varies.”

As for Dr Sands’ claims regarding antigen tests, Dr Forbes said the dashboard only reflects PCR positive cases and that’s always been the case from the beginning of reporting of the COVID situation in the country.

But surveillance information that officials monitor is fully inclusive of all of the tests that are mandatorily reported into the ministry - whether PCR or rapid antigen.

“The dashboard does not include rapid antigen testing, but certainly the Ministry of Health does monitor the COVID-19 situation in new cases per day, average number cases per week, deaths, hospitalisations and we look at PCR and rapid antigen tests and that has been something that is and has been reported into the Ministry of Health.

“From the beginning of the pandemic and from when antigen tests were made available, all labs are mandated to report on that. So, to answer the first part your question, yes, we do see that there is an uptick in the number of cases, the average number of cases that are being diagnosed,” she explained

The FNM chairman said it is now time for the government to consider including positive results of antigen tests in the nation’s daily dashboard to provide Bahamians with an accurate picture of the nation’s true COVID state.

Probed on the possibility of adding the antigen test, she pointed to what would need to be done.

“In the beginning of the pandemic, PCR (was) what was widely available and there has to be a consensus upon on what is reported and then would need to be adjusted back overtime to prevent, for example, if we were to report antigen test now there would be change in the way that it is being reported and so it certainly could be reported,” Dr Forbes said.

“We have discussed in many (spaces) and certainly it could appear in the dashboard as additional information but the context of that would not be that all of a sudden cases suddenly increase it would just mean that the definition of what is reported has changed.”

Asked whether not reflected antigen test results on the daily dashboard is a true reflection of the current situation, she said: “The answer no, but it’s a little more complicated than that. First of all, the cases on the dashboard are always lower than the actual true number of cases in the country because one it does not include the rapid antigen test and second of all there are persons who do not come forward for testing. They may have mild symptoms … they may not present for testing.

“The rapid antigen test is not just the test for symptomatic people will seek. It’s also a test, for example, for travel or for screening after say an exposure and so there could be a large number of antigen tests that are done for example, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that all of those tests were done for screening of people with symptoms.

“As a matter of fact, when I’m looking at the dashboard from the latest period as it relates COVID-19 this last epidemiological week, the rapid antigen the percentage of the number of tests that are positive is actually a little lower than the (weeks) before,” she said.

MICHAEL Pintard says the Davis administration continues to leave the Free National Movement out of meetings with top health officials about COVID-19.

His comment yesterday came after Deputy Prime Minister Chester Cooper said the government will remove the requirement for antigen tests for visitors five days after arrival in the country.

Mr Pintard did not express a view on the change, saying the FNM is not privy to the guidance behind the decision.

“This administration is refusing to involve the opposition in the briefing by the EOC,” he said. “They have an obligation in our estimation. We certainly provided it (to them). It wasn’t a courtesy, it was the sensible thing for a government to do, to involve the official opposition when they are having discussions with the health professionals so that we can all be privy to the data that is being made available to us and this government has failed to do so, so when I hear pronouncements by this government in terms of what they intend to do as it relates to the management of COVID, we are not armed with the information and they are deliberately excluding us from being included in the briefings so we could know what the facts are.”

He added: “We were aware that in times past, that they were unwilling to explain the extent to which we were having a challenge which is why we’ve said let us go with the PCR test results as well as the antigen because it gives us a more holistic picture of what we are facing. They later came out and took the advice we gave onboard.”

Mr Cooper said on Wednesday the requirement for a test to enter The Bahamas will continue. He told reporters tourism stakeholders are encouraging the government to further relax COVID-19 protocols, including removing the mask mandate.

Yesterday, Mr Cooper said the Ministry of Health is considering that recommendation and will express a view to Cabinet next week.