Most COVID-19 cases come from Paramaribo South

The authorities recently indicated that most of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 came from Paramaribo South. They have also identified most of the people who may have been infected with the novel coronavirus. “This way we can identify the sources of infection and contain the further spread of the virus,” said Cleopatra Jessurun, director of

Health, who warned that one infected person could infect about three people within one week in case of community spreading. She therefore urged everybody to wash their hands with soap regularly and to stick to social distancing. “If today we ‘discover’ one person whose source has not been identified, this person could possibly infect more than 25,000 people within a month. Of all of these people 4,000 will be admitted to the hospitals and about 1,300 could end up at the Intensive Care Unit with the chance of about 700 dying,” said the director who added that “we do not have the capacity for this.” She explained that the important thing is to identify each case as quickly as possible and to put all of the people who came in contact with that person in quarantine quickly so that the further spread of the virus can be prevented as much as possible. “As long as we can trace everything in every case we will keep doing that. But people really should listen and comply with the measures because if things get out of hand and we get community spreading, it will be fatal to our country.”