CMO says information on positive COVID tests is not always forthcoming from private physicians and facilities

Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Rhonda Sealy-Thomas says the Ministry of Health is encountering challenges in obtaining testing information for COVID-19 positive persons done privately.

Persons have complained about going to private doctors or medical facilities, testing for the virus with a positive result, and being asked to immediately isolate.

Subsequent calls to the Health Ministry for a follow-up and further testing have gone answered and no health official has visited these persons, in some cases, for more than five weeks.

Sealy-Thomas says the Ministry might not know that people are positive because the lab or doctor where they took the test might not have forwarded the information to health officials for follow-up.