More than five dozen families were enlisted to participate in a COVID-19 lateral flow testing programme on Saturday 16 Oct.
The pilot, administered by the Cayman Islands Public Health Department, involved families carrying out COVID-19 tests on each member of the household.
“The pilot rollout of lateral testing, which was being hosted at John Gray High School, is now complete,” Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Lee said in an update at 10am on Sunday 17 Oct.
Dr. Lee said 220 people from 62 families attended the centre for the programme.
“There were two positives as a result of the screening exercise, which were one adult and one child,” said Dr. Lee.
Health Services Authority Training and Development manager, Racquel Sutherland, who was on hand for the project rollout, told the Cayman Compass the students and families who were selected were due to complete their mandatory isolation after being exposed to the recent community outbreak involving schools.
Each family was given a 30 minute appointment at John Gray High School, where they were guided on how to preform a lateral flow test on themselves.
“We walk them through step by step, on how the test is to be done, because some of the persons will have to return home with kits until their quarantine is over,” said Theresa Burrell-Prehay, a Health Promotion Officer at Public Health.
Burrell-Prehay said some families were given two kits per person, and in order for them to be self-discharged from isolation, they would have to email their negative test results to the Public Health Department.
“We are trying to give the community the confidence they need to be able to do this test on their own at home,” said Sutherland.
“Now if we get to a position where families feel like, ‘great I understand this’ … then we are hoping that we can move to a place where families can test themselves and determine a … negative result and move about the community in a safe way, with confidence using, the honour system”.
However, if they test positive, the individual will be required to do a PCR test.
Sutherland said the hope is that by providing rapid fire testing, COVID-19 cases will be easily identified and isolated.
“Essentially we are piloting this programme to see how well it will work as the government prepares to make their decisions about border reopening,” said Burrell-Prehay.
The lateral flow tests have been described as a game-changer by Premier Wayne Panton, who announced the training programme on 14 Oct.
“I want to emphasise, this is a pilot which will allow us to evaluate how the lateral flow tests are being utilised and reported on and, more importantly, will bring much-needed relief for some of our families of students who have been impacted,” the premier said.
EDITORS NOTE: This story has been updated to reflect the information provided by Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Lee on Sunday morning.
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