100% of St. Lucia’s COVID-19 Positive Patients Have Recovered

The death rate of the coronavirus has caused panic among the world as the spread continues. As the death toll rises, so far, there have been no deaths on the island of St. Lucia.

Saint Lucia’s chief medical officer, Dr. Sharon Belmar-George, made an announcement via YouTube on Wednesday that the island has a 100% recovery rate for all 15 patients who had the coronavirus in the country.

“To date, all of the positive cases of COVID-19 in Saint Lucia have recovered, with the remaining two cases who were in isolation receiving negative COVID-19 results and have since been discharged from the hospital,” Belmar-George said. “This now places Saint Lucia at the 100% recovery rate of all COVID-19 cases.”

Saint Lucia’s Ministry of Health released a statement on Friday, to say that the country’s success so far is “a result of the collective efforts of our health professionals working collaboratively to manage our cases and the sacrifices made by the public during the period of shut down.”

“As of April 23, 2020, the World Health Organization reported a total of 2, 544, 792 confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally, with 175, 694 deaths.

“There are now 957, 402 confirmed cases in the region of the Americas. The affected region includes Dominican Republic (5,300), Haiti (58), Barbados (75), Jamaica (233), Cuba (1189), Dominica (16), Grenada (14), Trinidad and Tobago (115), Guyana (67), Antigua and Barbuda (24), Bahamas (65), Saint Vincent and Grenadines (13), Guadeloupe (148), Martinique (164), Puerto Rico (1,298), US Virgin Islands (54), and Cayman Islands (66).

“Saint Lucia has recorded a total of 15 confirmed cases of COVID-19 all of whom have recovered and been discharged from care. Results received on Friday, April 24, 2020, from testing carried out during the period April 21-24, 2020 of 60 samples are all negative.”

“Saint Lucia has modified its testing strategy by increasing the testing on the number of samples from the community respiratory clinics. This would assist us in the assessment of COVID-19 locally,” Belmar-George said.

Saint Lucia is enforcing a partial shutdown and curfew from 7 PM to 5 AM to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus. The island’s measures include “school closure, national zoning to manage population movement, the closure of non-essential businesses, travel restrictions, the partial national shutdown, and the instituting of a 24-hour curfew.”

The officials on the island have also emphasized the “use of masks, testing, isolation, treatment of sick persons, and adoption of hygiene and other infection prevention measures.”

“We remain at a very critical position in the implementation of the national response to the COVID-19 threat,” Belmar-Georga said. “Large-scale public health and social measures have been implemented in an effort to break the transmission of COVID-19 when in-country transmission was noted. The country must note that many of these measures need to be sustained in an effort to achieve low COVID-19 levels in country.”