Health authorities have raised a new concern in relation to the virulence of the COVID-19 strain that came in from the United Kingdom. The soccer players have now been in the country for 4 weeks.
However, unlike the cases that came from the Philippines and Korea that converted to negative within 2-3 weeks, the strain from the UK is still positive after 4 weeks.
This finding has fully vindicated our testing protocol whereby we require 3 consecutive negative tests after the person tested positive before they can be released from the quarantine station to a lower level (step down) quarantine facility for another week before being released home.
If the Government had followed the current global practice of releasing these persons without further testing on day 14 after they tested positive, they would have released people that are still positive into the community and started a community transmission of the virus.
The next test of the soccer players is scheduled for tomorrow, Tuesday 24 November 2020. This is 30 days after their return to the Solomon Islands. The government is hoping that most if not all of them will come back negative so that the numbers of active cases in the country can reduce from the current 11 cases to a lower figure.
– SICCI Media
