University of the West Indies (UWI) students will be assisting health authorities in a COVID-19 Evaluation Survey to detect suspected COVID-19 cases in communities.
COVID-19 Cabinet Sub Committee Chairman, Senator Dr Jerome Walcott said during the national lockdown, the community evaluation survey with a difference will allow authorities to identify persons who might have suspected cases of either dengue or COVID-19, which will be followed by testing.
“In terms of the structure of this, we are working collaboratively with the University of the West Indies, as I speak to you the recruiting is going on. There have been hundreds of volunteers for this process; we are looking at about [360] persons to be utilized.
“They will be provided with the necessary photo identification, they will be using smart phones, there will be a link connected to the UWI Cloud system. They go to a household, they click on the link, they pull down the link and they go through a series of questions, including a geotagging of that residence for obvious reasons,” he said, during this evening’s COVID-19 update.
“They are seeking to help. They are not trying to be inquisitive or malicious; they are just trying to help. We need that valuable information for us to try to identify the incidence of COVID in the community. We want to be preemptive and to go and find those cases within the communities, isolate them where necessary and so assist in the containment and reduction in the communities,” he added.
Dr. Walcott said the interview process should take approximately seven minutes and covers a number of health issues, which are particularly COVID and dengue-related. He said the 360 students conducting the survey will be expected to visit four households within an hour, with each student spending six hours per day in the field.
He said once the public recognizes the importance of the project, the approximately 100 000 households in Barbados can be covered during an estimated 12 to 14 days.
“It is expected that this information will be transmitted in real-time to the central area at the University of the West Indies where all the processing and the database will be held and analysis will be done. And it is expected to have in like every two hours, information being turned out, indicating where hotspots are, where someone who had symptoms, or who might be suspected of having COVID to allow a series of mobile teams comprising of medical personnel, trained in swabbing,” he said.
Dr Walcott explained that two tests, including the antigen and a PCR, will be offered to persons displaying symptoms of COVID-19. He said if the antigen test is positive, persons will be asked to remain in their present location, while they await the PCR test result.
He said persons who are concerned about strangers coming to their houses can be assured that the students will be wearing masks, face shields, and equipped with sanitizers, while maintaining their distance.
The COVID-19 Cabinet Sub Committee Chairman also noted that authorities are in the process of enlisting prominent members in communities to accompany the survey teams, particularly to the homes of elderly persons.
 “We recognize that at this time in Barbados we have seen community spread, we have seen cases popping up all over the place. This period gives us the time and the space to be able to assess our situation and most importantly to identify where cases may be and which we would not normally come across.
“And we came to this decision as the result of the occurrence recently, in the last two to three weeks, where persons presented quite advanced in their illness to the Accident and Emergency (A&E) department. And a number of persons have passed at A&E and went to the Harrison’s Point and perhaps within 24 to 36 hours would have [died] because of their condition,” he said.
“We also noted that a number of persons going to Harrison’s Point would have presented fairly ill and this was occurring because some of them were speaking about dengue fever. At this point in time, the effects of COVID were being mitigated and clouded by the presence also of dengue fever in our society at the same time.
“There are similar symptoms to some extent; there is an overlap of symptoms, certainly the headache, muscle pain, the fever. These are common symptoms to both diseases and oftentimes persons are self-diagnosing or they are being told by medical practitioners, they have dengue fever and the focus is there,” Dr Walcott further explained. (AH)
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