Health officials issue warning about danger of providing fake information

ST GEORGE’S:

GRENADA’S ACTING Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shawn Charles, has warned individuals about the dangers of providing incorrect information in record-keeping logs at restaurants and other businesses – information that will be used to provide contact tracers with an avenue to contact persons who may have been exposed to COVID-19.

“If individuals were to put a false name or fake name on a log and a number at which they cannot be reached, in the event something like this occurred and that person was exposed, that person might be infected and they would not have been contacted by the Ministry of Health, they will go on to infect their co-workers and their family, and someone may die,” Charles said in the weekly post-cabinet briefing.

BREACHED REGULATIONS

Last weekend, the Ministry of Health announced that two persons who arrived from the United States tested positive for the virus. Those two breached quarantine regulations by leaving home before receiving clearance from the Ministry of Health. By the time they were contacted, they had visited four restaurants and one of the restaurants did not have record-keeping information.

Health Minister Nickolas Steele highlighted the risk of providing fake information to businesses that are keeping logbooks.

“That information is confidential and will only be used by the Ministry of Health for contact-tracing purposes,” Steele said.

Since resuming normality after the country went into lockdown as a means of controlling the spread of COVID19, Grenada has adopted a number of new protocols for business.

“We must all be responsible in every aspect. If someone enters a fake name or a false name on a log, what are they escaping from? They are just endangering themselves and everyone around them,”Charles said, while urging all citizen to work along with the Ministry of Health by following the protocols of sanitising and maintaining physical distancing.

“Businesses, you are given some protocols or some rules that you need to follow, these were put in to facilitate a safe or a safer Grenada. Just work along with us and assist us all in protecting our own selves, protecting our country, protecting our health, and protecting our economy,” said Charles.