A senior Permanent Secretary in Grenada has been struck by Covid-19.
Well-placed sources told THE NEW TODAY that the high-ranking civil servant is suspected to have come into contact with the deadly virus through her husband who works in the Ministry of Culture in the Ministerial Complex in the Botanical Gardens at Tanteen, St. George.
He said that the Ministry of Labour has been compromised due to the Covid-19 status of the Permanent Secretary and staffers have been put on rotation in recent days.
There are reports that the Labour Commissioner, Cyrus Griffith is thinking of approaching the powers-that-be to temporarily close down the department in the interest of the safety of the workers.
According to the source, if the PS has the virus it raises a serious issue because the Department of Labour is located between the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ministry of Agriculture where Covid-19 cases have been discovered.
“If both sides of Labour have it, why you have people coming inside there? Everybody is frightened. There is a kind of unusual tension – I have never experienced this kind of a thing. It’s a kind of tension –everybody tense,” he said.
The source called on government to close down the Department of Labour in the wake of the deteriorating Covid-19 situation in the country.
THE NEW TODAY has also received reports that a top executive member of one of the public sector unions on the island has been tested positive for the virus in recent days.
Overnight, the Ministry of Health released figures to show that 231 persons tested positive for Covid-19 in the past two days and that the overall figure now stands at 1473.
Grenada also recorded seven deaths on Monday, the most in a single day with the overall tally now standing at 12.
Speculation is rife that Grenada’s Covid-19 figures are currently under-reported as the health team has not been able to test a number of persons who are known to be exhibiting symptoms of the virus at the community level.
One family in the St Patrick area also complained of having to wait nearly two weeks for a health team to visit them to conduct a test for the virus, and many others complain of not getting through to the hotline after days of calling.