Principal medical officer in charge of institutions Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards, has revealed that nationals now returning from Barbados will be quarantined for a period of 14 days.
This has become necessary because of the prevalence of one of the new strains in Barbados.
Speaking at the Ministry of Health’s media briefing on Monday, she said a repatriation flight from Barbados was due to arrive in the country on Wednesday, with another batch of citizens returning from Miami on Saturday.
Abdool-Richards said “The returning repatriated nationals from Barbados will undergo a quarantine period of 14 days under State or State-supervised quarantine, as opposed to persons returning from other countries such as the United States of America and Canada. That is because of the prevalence of one of the new strains in Barbados.”
She said “The variant that is present in Barbados is the UK variant, and in trying to protect our country from this variant, we really extended that quarantine period for persons so that they are monitored and tested to reduce the risk of the variant being here.”
Repatriation flights from Barbados are spaced out at about 16-day intervals to allow for the safe accommodation of returning nationals.
The number of repatriation flights from the US and Canada continues to be at intervals of eight to 11 days.
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