Minister Sacramento Statement - Sunday COVID-19 Briefing
Here’s the full text of the opening statement by Minister Sacramento at today’s COVID-19 briefing:
Hello and good afternoon.
Thank you for joining us for today’s information briefing, I hope that you are safe and well. Today I am once again joined by the Commissioner of Police, Ian McGrail.
Let me start with today’s statistics:
The COVID-19 figures as at this morning are as follows:
Total number of swabs taken: 4099
Results pending: 491
Results received: 3608
Negative results: 3346
Confirmed cases so far: 146
Recovered so far: 143
That leaves us with 3 confirmed positive cases today, none of whom are in hospital.
The number of positive cases today is the same as it was yesterday, it is low.
This is good of course and it shows how by working together and following the rules we have been able to suppress the virus.
Of the three positive cases at the moment, 1 arises from normal testing, that is, following a call to 111 when the person manifested symptoms, and the other 2 arise from the targeted and systematic sampling of frontline workers.
This means that those workers who tested positive after the systematic sampling had been asymptomatic.
It is almost 2 weeks since we started the targeted sampling of frontline staff.
During this time 1375 swabs have been taken. 925 have been processed, 450 are pending.
From this exercise, there have 4 confirmed cases, of these, 2 remain active. Both are home and well.
These statistics form part of the global statistics that I read at the start, they are not in addition to.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the GHA’s infection control team, Nathan Lightbody and Sandra Netto and Kenneth Orfila who have been working relentlessly since January undertaking the majority of the Covid19 swabs throughout Gibraltar for their tireless dedication on the front line.
This targeted testing of frontline staff is very much the key that will tell us how prevalent this virus is among us. It is possible that we may have the virus without symptoms. Not having symptoms means that we may not know that we have it, but, it will not stop us from spreading it
It is for this reason that frontline staff always behave as if they do have the virus, with the use of PPE and following the other public health guidelines, so as to minimise the spread of infection as much as possible.
You have seen that since we commenced the lockdown measures, there have been gradual relaxations to these measures, we will gradually release the lockdown measures in a phased way.
As you know, this week the Chief Minister will lay out the plans to release Gibraltar from the lockdown and the roadmap on how we will ‘unlock the Rock’.
As the lockdown measures are eased, we must make every effort to prevent the virus from being transmitted from person to person. We must continue to follow social distancing rules and respect the lockdown measures in place which are there to keep us all safe.
The targeted testing of individuals and the contact tracing of positive cases will be key factors that will enable us to unlock the lockdown.
You may have heard the Deputy Chief Minister announce yesterday that we have set up a new Public Health Screening Facility at the University of Gibraltar.
This has been set up so that we can give effect to our new strategy of Test, Trace and Isolate strategy.
We will TEST to confirm positive cases.
We will Identify and TRACE contacts of a confirmed case while they were infectious.
We will ISOLATE confirmed cases and their close contacts.
In order to increase our testing capacity, as a civil contingencies measure, the Ministry of Public Health commissioned the setting up of a Covid-19 Testing facility at the Gibraltar University to cater for screening for Covid-19. The test being used is a fast screening test that has been developed in the UK by our own microbiologist Dr Nick Cortes and his team at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The teams from The University of Gibraltar, Public Health, GHA and Civil Contingencies have been working at lightning speed to set this facility up within days.
We are aiming to increase testing over the coming weeks to 300 tests per day with results available within 24 hours.
This large volume of testing (which is about 1% of the population per day) allow us to track the rate of infection within the community and help us decide whether the lockdown measures can be further relaxed over coming weeks. It will also serve as an early warning system if virus transmission starts to increase in our community.
The new lab that we have set up locally will enable us to test the community vigorously with a quick turnaround time for the results, and this will work in partnership with a Contact Tracing Bureau.
The Contact Tracing Bureau will consist of a team located on two sites:
At St Bernard’s Hospital the 111 Team will be expanded to provide contact tracing; and
at the Europa Point Hospital Nightingale Facility the existing staff have been repurposed to perform the Contact Tracing role.
The Contact Tracing Bureau Team will consist of over 40 people and training has already started this week and the contact tracing will commence next week.
The Contact Tracing Bureau Team will be informed of all new cases of Covd-19.
A clinical member of the team will contact the person who has tested positive and inform them of the positive result. They will then carry out a Case Interview.
This interview will collect important information about their current symptoms and past medical history. Contacts during the infectious period will also be identified.
The person will be advised to self-isolate. It is very important that this advice is followed as it will ensure that the virus is not transmitted to anyone else.
The Contact Tracing Team will then Track and call those people who have come in to close contact with the infected person. These contacts will usually be well, and unaware of the contact until they receive this call.
They will be informed that they have been in contact with someone with covid-19 and asked to self-isolate for 10 days from the date of the contact. This is because the contact may be incubating the virus in those ten days as if the contact then become infected with the virus they may transmit it to others before they develop symptoms.
By isolating all close contacts, we prevent onward transmission of the virus.
Thankfully, most contacts will not develop the virus but all have to be quarantined. This is because there is no test available that can tell us if a contact is incubating the virus.
It is not yet possible to tell which of the contacts will develop the virus until after they can infect others.
The Contact Tracing Team will monitor all contacts and if any develop symptoms of Covid-19, they will be advised to call 111 so that a diagnostic test can be arranged.
If they test positive, they will be asked to continue in self isolation until they are no longer infectious. Because they have already been in quarantine, they will not have passed the virus on to anyone else. This is how we stop the onward transmission of this Virus.
Contact Tracing will be most effective if we can identify as many cases of the virus as possible in our community.
Those who have symptoms are calling 111 and being tested.
The virus can be spread by people who don’t even know they have the virus because they do not have any symptoms or their symptoms are very mild.
In order to identify these asymptomatic cases, we have to significantly increase our testing capacity so that we can screen large numbers of people and obtain the results quickly.
This will allow us to identify asymptomatic cases and isolate them and their contacts before the virus spreads any further.
This Test, Track and Isolate strategy means that individually and collectively, you will all play a critical role to help us “Unlock the Rock”.
The lockdown measures that we have had in place, on advice of Public Health have been extraordinarily successful so far, the total number of Covid-19 cases in Gibraltar have been kept low, less than half a percent of the population and we have so far been able to protect the most vulnerable members of our community.
This success is thanks to you, it has come about at as a result of your cooperation with the social distancing and lockdown rules. Thank you for following the rules and please continue to follow the advice as we move to the next phase.
Before I pass over to the Commissioner, I would like to say how vital policing is. The situation that we find ourselves in has meant that the Royal Gibraltar Police has had to quickly adapt from its routine policing and law enforcement to meet the needs of and to safeguard our community. Not only do they now patrol to ensure that the civil contingencies regulations are being observed, but this weekend has also demonstrated the breadth of their role in our community. Officers from the Royal Gibraltar Police, together with the Gibraltar Port Authority, Customs, the Boarders and Coastguards Agency worked together in the successful repatriation of 23 individuals who have been repatriated from Morocco. This shows us how the Royal Gibraltar Police adapts to keep us all safe in many ways. On this repatriation mission, I would like to thank everyone who was involved in this success and to particularly single out the work undertaken by Ernest Danino from the Office of Civil Contingencies who led on the coordination of this and has been in communication with all the relevant entities and individuals since the lockdown in Morocco began. Thank you.
I will now hand over to the Commissioner of Police, Mr Ian McGrail.
Thank you
