Two Kaieteur News reporters test positive for COVID-19

Aug 23, 2020 News

– Guyana spends billions to renovate old hotel but only has one testing machine

Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony

Two Kaieteur News reporters were recently informed that they tested positive for COVID-19, but the time it took to receive their results has shed light on worrying details about the management of the pandemic by the previous administration.
The need for testing for the staffers became evident after it was announced that Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hugh Todd, had tested positive. The reporters had been exposed to members of the Cabinet.
In keeping with protocols of the newspaper, the reporters are currently in isolation at home, and are cooperating fully with the efforts of the Ministry of Health.
As a result of this news, staffers of several departments of Kaieteur News are to be tested over the next few days.
One issue of particular concern was the time it took for the reporters to receive their results. While they were told at the time of testing that those testing positive would be likely to receive results by the next day, the results actually came eight days later.
Several checks within that period revealed that a backlog at the laboratory processing the samples had built up.
Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, told Kaieteur News yesterday that the backlog had racked up to about 800 samples during the week.
The Minister explained that due to a ramp-up in testing by the new administration, the limited infrastructure held by the government to process tests posed a challenge.
Presently, there is only one Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machine, which is manually controlled, in use. It has the capacity to process 80-90 samples in about nine hours, according to Anthony. Kaieteur News understands that there is only one shift per day.
This would not do, as the ramp up in testing sees the country taking hundreds of samples in any given day.
The former APNU+AFC government spent billions in the COVID-19 period it held government, including $1.6B to renovate the old Oceanview Hotel at Liliendaal.
Projects like this one was supposed to build capacity to accommodate patients. But without the requisite testing, there would be few patients to house.
The Minister said that testing in the past was very restrictive. However, the Government is now allowing asymptomatic persons to be tested as well.
Recent testing statistics have provided a much clearer, more sobering picture of how widespread the pandemic really is.
The numbers had rocketed pass 900 cases as of yesterday.
Dr. Anthony explained that the government is steaming ahead with training for persons to assist with processing of test samples. That way, instead of conducting a single shift of samples processing per day, the Ministry would facilitate three shifts, potentially taking the testing capacity to 300 samples per day.
The government has also, according to Anthony, put in an order for another machine – one that’s automatic and much more efficient. He said that then the government may be able to do 96 tests in two hours, instead of 96 in nine hours.
As for quarantine facilities, Anthony assured that there are enough facilities to contain persons who are not able to isolate at home.