Floor quarantined in Mount Alvernia after resident and nurse test positive for Covid-19

The Elderly Residential Service has quarantined a floor in Mount Alvernia after a resident and a member of the nursing staff tested positive for Covid-19, the Gibraltar Government confirmed on Tuesday.

Both cases were on the second floor and asymptomatic, and both are in isolation.

“The floor is in quarantine and contacts are also isolating,” a spokesman for No.6 Convent Place told the Chronicle.

News of the positive cases at Mount Alvernia came as the latest government data recorded 132 new cases in total on Tuesday.

There were 783 active positive cases in Gibraltar on Monday, with a further 1004 people in self isolation.

The bulk of the new cases were of the highly-infectious Omicron variant, which has become the dominant strain in Gibraltar in recent days.

And while the Omicron variant appears to be milder than earlier strains, helped in large part by Gibraltar’s wide vaccination program, the rising numbers are being monitored closely by officials constantly reviewing current guidelines and restrictions.

Hospitalisations remain low despite the high number of positive cases in the community. On Monday, there were three people on the Covid-19 ward at St Bernard’s Hospital and none in the critical care unit.

The concern is that a significant spike in cases could lead to more people needing hospital care at a time when the GHA is under pressure due to the number of staff who had tested positive for Covid-19 or were isolating as close contacts.

The figure has jumped sharply since November, when just 30 GHA staff tested positive that month.

In December, the number of positive cases in the GHA reached 108 across all departments, according to GHA data released by the government in response to questions from this newspaper.

Since the New Year, 25 people in the GHA have tested positive for Covid-19, mainly in the Primary Care Centre, the Maternity Department and the Critical Care Unit, the government said.