Minister of Foreign Affairs and Parliamentary Representative for Petite Savanne Constituency, Dr. Kenneth Darroux, said illegal entrants infected with COVID-19 could bring coronavirus death to hundreds of people if they are not blocked from entering the country. He said this in reference to the many imported cases of COVID-19 after the nation’s borders were reopened a few months back.
Darroux urged the police and immigration officials as well as community folks to block illegal entries into the country, saying the unchecked activity of illegal immigrants is responsible for the resurgence of coronavirus incidents across the country.
“If individuals continue to enter the country infected, we are going to see a drastic increase in the number of positive cases, hospitalizations and the worst case scenario is death,” Darroux stated. “This is what will eventually happen if we do not take steps to curb the illegal entries to Dominica.”
The parliamentary representative also revealed that he and his family are self-isolating at home following exposure to a close contact of a coronavirus-infected patient. The patient is believed to be an illegal entrant who lives in Bellevue Chopin which is a community in the Petite Savanne Constituency.
Darroux said he has decided to self-isolate out of an abundance of caution, and not because he is positive to the disease yet. He said he has called for self-testing and the results have returned negative, but he will remain quarantined for self-observation in order to be on the safe side.
“I wasn’t one of the primary contacts, but because of contacts with close contact, I think there was also a cause for concern,” he said. “From Sunday, I decided to self-isolate myself and my family. I do not want to confirm anything this morning, but you would have heard the number of primary contacts that were identified, and that by itself is extremely mind-boggling.”
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