HEALTH Minister Renward Wells says he does not "foresee" any additional COVID restrictions being implemented despite a sustained uptick in new infections over the past several weeks.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, Mr Wells said officials are instead seeking to get a handle on the situation by testing symptomatic cases, closely monitoring positive patients and expanding the government’s vaccination programme among other things.

“We do have a very aggressive surveillance unit that is following up on the cases, the contacts and giving the advice to persons that they should quarantine if they have been in contact with an individual,” he said before going to a Cabinet meeting.

“We’re testing folks who are symptomatic and so we’re doing all of the things that we did in the Ministry of Health to get our hands around our second wave to ensure that the country does not enter a third wave.

“And so, while we are seeing the increase of cases, the ministry has also sought to increase the amount of opportunities for vaccinations and we have the two circumstances running concurrently and so from our perspective, both with the health measures in place and the vaccine being deployed as was seen in the United Kingdom and in Israel, it was able to bring down the case and incidences of positive cases in both of those countries.”

His comments came as the country recorded 45 new infections on Monday, pushing the nation’s overall tally to 9,505.

New Providence accounted for 30 of those cases, followed by Grand Bahama at seven, Bimini and Cat Cay at five, while Abaco and Eleuthera had one case each.

Hospitalisations also rose to 42 after another positive patient was admitted on Monday.

The spike in virus numbers and hospitalisations forced Princess Margaret Hospital last week to reopen its 28-bed Special Pathogens Unit to accommodate an increase of COVID-19 related admissions.

The unit was last used when the country was in the midst of its second coronavirus wave.

Asked about the possibility of new restrictions to help curb COVID-19 spread in the community, Mr Wells suggested that officials are not considering the matter at the moment due to a fluctuation of new cases.

“Right now, I don’t foresee any more measures in regards to the health protocols than what we have in place because we see a spike one day with about 40 cases and then we see it down in the teens, then we see it in the twenties and that might be due to a particular event because you know this virus has a fourteen day incubation cycle,” Mr Wells said.

“So, if you have a bunch of persons who get together in a particular locale commiserating together and someone is positive, and they would’ve spread it to these individuals you could expect that everyone exposed over those fourteen days would end up showing a positive.

“So, you will end up with some of those persons positive so you will have a spike and so what we’re seeking to do as we did in our press conference last week is just to remind the Bahamian people to adhere to the health protocols.

“Let us continue to wash our hands, wear our masks, physical distance and who were deploying the vaccine and we know at the end of the day, we’re going to be able to control this pandemic in the country.”

Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis also recently told a local daily he has no plans to increase COVID-19 restrictions.

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