Henry E. Rohlsen Airport on St. Croix. According to the Dept. of Health, one of the three latest cases was related to travel. Photo Credit: VI PORT AUTHORITY
Three new cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed on the island of St. Croix, according to the latest Dept. of Health infographic issued Monday night.
According D.O.H., of the three cases, one was travel-related, the other community spread, and the third was under investigation as of Monday night.
The department now says 73 people have recovered from the virus, which means health officials are only monitoring 5 cases. According to D.O.H. data, eight cases were confirmed in the last week: 7 on St. Croix and 1 on St. Thomas. In explaining the seemingly short recovery window for the recently confirmed cases, Dept. of Health Commissioner, Justa Encarnacion, on Sunday spoke of one case in an attempt to bring clarity: "One of those was someone tested as routine screening prior to their travel here and therefore the 14 days started from the date they were tested — asymptomatic," the commissioner said.
According to D.O.H., as of Thursday night, 2,907 tests had been administered, of which 84 tested positive and 2,819 negative, with 4 tests pending. There is one person hospitalized at the Juan F. Luis Hospital, and six individuals have died, among them a mother, father and son.
As cases rise in the USVI, Governor Albert Bryan told the Consortium during his Monday coronavirus press briefing that requiring a mandatory 14-day quarantine would essentially mean walking back the territory to the "Safer at Home" phase when hotel reservations were closed and leisure guests discouraged from traveling to the territory. Mr. Bryan said he has to balance the safety of the public and keeping the local government afloat, stating, "At this point we're running on fumes trying to make sure that we keep the money flowing, keep our vendors paid, keep WAPA paid, keep G.E.R.S. paid, and still keep all the semi-autonomous agencies and the other agencies of the government paid.
"None of that money gets into the government unless we have a working economy," Mr. Bryan added.
The governor further stated, "I see people on the chat making comments about shutdown for tourists. It's the local people that are coming home that are infecting people. We're not sending these people back to hotels, we're sending them back to their house when they quarantine."
At least three states are now requiring that visitors quarantine for 14 days or face penalties: New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said those violating the quarantine could be subject to a judicial order and mandatory quarantine, and fines are $2,000 for the first violation, $5,000 for the second violation, and $10,000 if you cause harm, according to CNN.
The largest hub for travel to the USVI is Florida, where cases have surged fivefold in the last two weeks. On Saturday, for the second straight day, Florida surged past its previous record for new coronavirus cases, reporting 9,585 infections. Another 8,530 were reported on Sunday.
According to a New York Times database, there have been at least 146,333 cases of coronavirus in Florida. As of Tuesday morning, at least 3,446 people had died.
Advertisements
