St Cuthbert’s Mission locked down to contain COVID-19 spike

– Min. Anthony

Minister of Health, Hon. Dr. Frank Anthony has said a voluntary lockdown has been instituted for St Cuthbert’s Mission/Pakuri to curb the spike in COVID-19 cases there.

Dr. Anthony said his Ministry and the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs held discussions with the Village Council and have put measures in place to facilitate the move.  

“They have agreed to go into voluntary lockdown that is now in effect at Cuthbert’s. We will continue to do testing in the village. We have a team that would go back in again today, and our intention is to do testing for most of the villages, the villagers are also cooperating as well,” the Minister said in his COVID-19 update today.

A medical team is on site to monitor and treat cases. Measures are also in place to transport anyone whose condition may deteriorate.

Meanwhile, at Kwebanna, Barima-Waini (Region One) officials have reported that cases have stabilised.

“We initially had about 62 cases in Kwebanna. We’ve taken action, have locked down the community and we sanitised the area.  Our team is in place, so those measures are working. We saw within a week we had a reduction from 62 to 52. We expect that during this week that number would drop further. However, we still remain vigilant because we do know that in some cases and in some conditions, you can have reinfections,” Dr. Anthony said.  

Meanwhile, close monitoring is ongoing at Manawarin and Waramuri in the Moruca sub-district.

“We haven’t locked down those communities, but we are observing. We are swabbing people, testing to ensure that we are able to detect cases and if we notice that it’s getting beyond a certain threshold, we will properly consider for the restrictions of movement, possibly lockdowns but we are not there yet,” Minister Anthony said. The Minister reiterated the appeal to the public to obey the preventative measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19.