By Nelson Manneh
The Gambia has on Thursday 7th January, 2021, recorded twenty-one new cases of the deadly coronavirus, bringing the total number of COVID-19 cases confirmed in the country to three thousand eight hundred and thirty-three (3, 833).
This is the highest single-day number of cases recorded in over five weeks in the country, while the median age of the new cases is 37.
Six of the new cases are epi-linked to recently confirmed cases.
No new COVID-19 death was recorded.
This is the 239th national situation report since the confirmation of the first case of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in The Gambia, on the 16th March 2020.
The Gambia currently has no people in hotel quarantine while there are thirty-one active cases.
Modou Njai, the Director of Health Promotion and Education at the Ministry of Health, said two hundred and sixty-five new laboratory test results were received from the Medical Research Council and the National Public Health Lab.
Of these, he said twenty-one new samples tested positive, representing a 7.9% positivity test rate. Director Njai said one of the new test returned undetermined.
“Press release was issued on the new hotel quarantine and testing guidelines in the wake of the emergence of a new fast-moving variant of COVID-19,” said Njai.
He said twenty high-risk contacts [of recently confirmed cases]have been identified and their follow-up began in earnest.
No new patients got discharged.
Director Njai said no person was newly taken into hotel quarantine and thirty were discharged.