No new cases for a week, GHA expands targeted testing

No new cases of Covid-19 have been detected in the past week, Acting Medical Director Dr Krishna Rawal said on Wednesday, as he confirmed that targeted testing of teachers will commence in the next few days.

The Gibraltar Health Authority has taken some 663 swabs as part of its targeted frontline and systematic sampling exercise.

The GHA is currently in the process of sampling staff from HM Prison as well as inmates in addition to the Ministry of Defence, Ocean Views, Mount Alvernia, Hillsides, the Care Agency, St Bernadette's, Bella Vista and the John Mackintosh wing.

“In the next few days, we will also be offering swabbing for the teachers,” Dr Rawal said.

This comes as the number of active cases in Gibraltar dropped from 11 on Tuesday to eight on Wednesday.

Despite this, Deputy Chief Minister Dr Joseph Garcia warned that that figure could quickly change.

Highlighting Gibraltar’s Covid data from April, he explained that at the start of April there were 46 active cases of the virus and 770 swabs taken.

“The number of active cases dropped to only two on 24 April and then shot up to 13 six days later on 30 April, the last day of the month,” he said.

“By then, we had carried out 2626 tests. A sample of 400 people selected at random was completed and another sample of frontline staff commenced.”

“The point I want to highlight about April is this. The number of active cases went up from two to 13. It did so quickly. This is precisely what we need to guard against.”

“Today there are eight active cases but this can change.”

“We must not let down our guard,” Dr Garcia said.

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