FNM MP Adrian Gibson is misrepresenting what’s really happening with the recent Covid-19 case on Long Island.
PLP candidate for Long Island Tyrel Young is raising the alarm after Gibson posted a message advising Long Islanders that a 41yr-old woman had tested for positive and claimed that “vigorous contact-tracing is currently being undertaken.”
Mr. Young said this was not the case.
“Several people from Long Island have been in touch with me to say how anxious and concerned they are about this. People are scared.”
According to Mr. Young, when the woman tested positive, she was isolated and given medical treatment, and some of those around her were asked to quarantine.
However a few days later, those in quarantine were allowed to go back into the community before two weeks had passed. None were tested again to ensure that they were Covid-19 negative, even the ones who were experiencing mild symptoms. Further, they only learned through the media that the person they’d been in contact with had tested positive.
In direct contradiction to Mr. Gibson’s claims about contact-tracing, several others who had been in recent contact with the woman were never contacted or tested.
“What’s really concerning,” he said, “is that some of those were allowed back into school, putting teachers, staff and children at risk. Also, there were no contact-tracing efforts at all underway. Nobody had been asked who had been in contact with whom to find out the extent of the outbreak.”
Mr. Young also thought that the FNM MP’s attempt to downplay the outbreak was highly irresponsible.
“The lady who tested positive hadn’t travelled recently,” he said, “which means that she contracted it locally. This means there’s at least one other person on Long Island with Covid-19, most likely more. Why isn’t this being taken more seriously? And more importantly, why isn’t the government following the science and conducting widespread testing and contact-tracing? Are they going to do as before and just wait until people are sick before doing anything?”
Mr. Young, an entrepreneur with deep family ties to Long Island, said he’s only expressing the same anxieties and frustrations that everyone on the island is feeling.
“Adrian Gibson needs to do more for the people of Long Island than just issue statements pretending everything is okay. This is simply not true. They need to not play politics when people’s health and well-being are at stake.”
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