The three pos­i­tive COVID-19 cas­es that were record­ed in T&T na­tion­als who re­turned from Grena­da on Fri­day, has been de­scribed by lo­cal au­thor­i­ties as a wor­ry­ing de­vel­op­ment.

Speak­ing dur­ing the Min­istry of Health’s COVID-19 me­dia brief­ing on Sat­ur­day, Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with his min­is­te­r­i­al coun­ter­part in Grena­da, con­tact trac­ing has been ini­ti­at­ed for 127 peo­ple whom they be­lieve the three would have come in­to con­tact with as they went about their dai­ly busi­ness.

The three T&T na­tion­als had been res­i­dent in Grena­da since March.

Deyals­ingh said of­fi­cials in both is­lands were con­cerned as pre­lim­i­nary re­ports claimed the three had been “all over the place” as they had not been quar­an­tined.

Urg­ing cit­i­zens in both is­lands to use this lat­est sit­u­a­tion as a warn­ing not to be­come com­pla­cent, Deyals­ingh said the three who re­main quar­an­tined, will be re-test­ed on Mon­day.

He is hop­ing those re­sults will be neg­a­tive but for now, the three are be­ing sub­ject­ed to all pro­to­cols and treat­ment that COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tients re­quire.

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram re­port­ed that up to 10 am on Sat­ur­day, there were 136 pos­i­tive cas­es of the virus record­ed in T&T. How­ev­er, he said it was dur­ing the brief­ing that con­fir­ma­tion had been re­ceived that a na­tion­al re­turn­ing from the US had test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19. This brings the num­ber to 137.

He promised to pro­vide an up­date in the min­istry’s 6 pm re­lease yes­ter­day, al­though he said the pa­tient would have been trans­ferred to the Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal for quar­an­tine and treat­ment.

Con­cerns have arisen as to the cir­cum­stances which re­sult­ed in this pa­tient from the US be­ing al­lowed to re-en­ter T&T as bor­ders re­main closed, while Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said they would soon be­gin look­ing at bring­ing home cit­i­zens who re­main in the larg­er coun­tries such as the US, UK and Cana­da.

A to­tal of 162 peo­ple re­main quar­an­tined at this time.