There are still sev­er­al burn­ing ques­tions that have not been an­swered by Min­istry of Health au­thor­i­ties in the death of 77-year-old Hansel Leon, a US cit­i­zen who suc­cumbed to com­pli­ca­tions from the COVID-19 on Wednes­day close to noon at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal. The one thing that seems cer­tain, how­ev­er, is that the Min­istry’s of Health’s con­tact trac­ing net for per­sons he may have come in­to con­tact with will have to be cast wide.

Dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing opn Thurs­day, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO) Dr Roshan Paras­ram skirt­ed around sev­er­al ques­tions raised about Leon and failed to give clear an­swers on when the pa­tient was first ad­mit­ted to a med­ical fa­cil­i­ty be­fore he was lat­er trans­ferred to the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal, where his con­di­tion wors­ened.

But Guardian Me­dia was able to ob­tain some vi­tal in­for­ma­tion not on­ly con­cern­ing Leon’s trav­el but al­so his ac­tiv­i­ty over the last few weeks with a friend of the man’s rel­a­tives.

Se­nior im­mi­gra­tion sources told Guardian Me­dia that Leon, who was stay­ing at his sis­ter’s house in South Trinidad, ar­rived in the coun­try on flight BW521 on Feb­ru­ary 7 from New York. The man al­so vis­it­ed Trinidad last year, ar­riv­ing on Feb­ru­ary 20 and leav­ing on March 22 - se­nior im­mi­gra­tion sources added.

“He comes every year for Car­ni­val,” a fam­i­ly friend said Thurs­day.

In the weeks lead­ing up to Car­ni­val, Leon had been so­cial­is­ing and at­tend­ing pub­lic events.

“For all of Feb­ru­ary he was fine but one of his close rel­a­tives where he was stay­ing told him he should not be ven­tur­ing out so of­ten be­cause of COVID-19,” re­vealed the fam­i­ly friend.

But on March 1, the week af­ter Car­ni­val, there was a gath­er­ing Leon at­tend­ed along with his friend, al­so from New York, where there were sev­er­al oth­er for­eign na­tion­als al­so present, the fam­i­ly friend said.

“I know that he passed out on a chair from tired­ness that night and his friend lat­er took him home. About four days lat­er (March 5) he went to a fu­ner­al,” the fam­i­ly friend said.

A few days lat­er, Leon fell ill and his friend from New York, who had gone to vis­it him at his rel­a­tive’s home, said he did not look well and they de­cid­ed to call an am­bu­lance.

“From what I was told, he was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and I know when they ad­mit­ted him he gave his son’s con­tact in­for­ma­tion in At­lanta,” said the friend.

The friend said they be­lieve it was “quite like­ly that some­one else who was ill with the virus may have passed it on to him.”

Leon seems to have been tak­en to the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal some­time be­tween March 13 and 15, where he was be­ing treat­ed un­til he died on Wednes­day, which would sug­gest he took well over the two to 14-day pe­ri­od which cur­rent med­ical ex­perts sug­gest be­fore show­ing symp­toms af­ter ex­po­sure.

Paras­ram said there were out­liers (anom­alies) that didn’t fix the gen­er­al sta­tis­tic trend with his case. He said in some cas­es, pa­tients could show symp­toms up to 42 days af­ter.

“All of us have been work­ing with 14 days and we are hop­ing to God that it is right. There has been shown viremic pa­tients up to 42 days in the re­search, some as far as be­yond 42 days, doc­u­ment­ed 21 days and car­ry­ing vi­ral ill­ness.”

How­ev­er, he steered clear of in­di­cat­ing when Leon was ad­mit­ted and if he was ad­mit­ted around March 13, why his case wasn’t de­clared to the pu­bic in some mea­sure since the first two cas­es de­clared by the Min­istry of Health did not match his age. The ages of the first two COVID-19 pa­tients were 52 and 66 re­spec­tive­ly.

Up to Thurs­day, ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Health, T&T had 65 con­firmed cas­es of COVID and 415 peo­ple had been test­ed.