With Region 10 recording just six COVID-19 cases since the virus outbreak, the Regional Heath and Emergency Committee of Region 10 is of the firm view that that perceived success in curbing the spread of the virus within the region has been as a result of the enormous work of its healthcare workers and the general public working together to reduce its spread.
Regional Health Officer (RHO) of Region 10, Dr. Pansy Armstrong, stated that very early in the beginning of the outbreak, the Region took responsibility in ensuring that it remains safe. She also noted that a number of initiatives were executed with the primary objective of safeguarding the health and safety of residents. She said that early on, the region decided that a concrete and firm decision had to be taken to ensure the safety of many.
“One of the first things that the region did was to institute a curfew, which was done a week or two before the national curfew and thus limited the movements of persons, thus resulting in the spread also being limited,” Dr. Armstrong said.
The RHO stressed that a number of other things were taken into immediate consideration as they were cognisant that if the residents were going to be protected, then immediate and drastic measures would have had to be implemented. She boasted that they were the first region that commenced screening at its entry points, which are many; and screening at all health facilities aided in the region’s success.

“We were the first region that commenced screening at the p point of entry into the region while we also commenced screening at all health facilities immediately, which helped us significantly,” the RHO added.
She continued that contact tracing was an initiative that was put into action after they discovered their first case, stressing that while some regions have implemented this sometime after, Region 10 continues to fight this disease through contact tracing.
“We also had our rapid response team, which helped us in garnering the samples, and with a constant education drive it had helped to boost our overall efforts in this fight,” Dr. Armstrong added.
However, Regional COVID-19 Coordinator, Dr. Marks, in admitting that a concern trend is developing with fewer and fewer persons wearing face marks, said that social media is playing a role in this. He said that through their education programme’s call-in segment, they found that there is a lot of knowledge perception of COVID-19, declaring that it is influenced by the actions internationally.
“Nationally we have been preaching one thing about COVID-19 but we are seeing that from other countries they are adapting to other views of coexisting with the disease, what also contributes to the cavalier approach to COVID-19 is that they were phases being placed and as such, persons were anxious,”
Dr. Marks, however, expressed sincere and deep concern that because people are eager to get past these phases, they would become vulnerable and carefree in their behavior.
“This is one of our greatest concerns as it maximises our task and it will make our work much harder,” he noted.
Dr. Marks disclosed that 106 tests were conducted in the region. The region is awaiting the results of six of those tests, while he said that there was only one death with seven recoveries and only two active cases. This, he stressed, is a testimony that more than half of the region’s cases have recovered. He added that it is evident in the continued hard work by all in ensuring that residents remain safe.