Ministry To Facilitate Antigen Testing At Airport
The Ministry confirmed that there has been a delay in test results due to a “significant increase” in positive cases, and said that to meet the demand for outbound testing, the Ministry “will facilitate antigen testing at the airport for those who need it on their day of travel.”
A Ministry spokesperson said “The Ministry of Health today confirmed that increased wait times for the return of results is as a direct result of the significant increase in positive cases.
“The highly contagious Omicron variant has led to a significant increase in positive pools of samples. These samples must be run twice to ensure accuracy. This takes time and as a result there has been a delay with the results.
“Test results are generally available within one day, but in the midst of this outbreak results will take longer due to the increase in positive cases.
“Coupled with that, US travellers must be tested relatively close to their travel date to meet the US Government’s requirement for pre-departure tests to be completed no more than a day before travel. This leaves little room for delay.
“To meet the demand for outbound testing the Ministry of Health will facilitate antigen testing at the airport for those who need it on their day of travel. We are asking persons who will use the antigen testing at the airport to arrive at least four [4] hours before the recommended flight departure time.
“This will allow for an hour for the health team to administer the antigen test, receive and certify the results, and also permit passengers to attend to their regular departure procedures.”
“During the Ministry’s last coronavirus update [December 30, 2021] it announced the processing of more than 13,700 tests.
The spokesperson noted, “This is a considerable amount of testing and the team at MDL is working diligently to ensure accuracy and efficiency.
“As this is the holiday period, our healthcare staff are working to meet the demand and increase in testing volume. We continue to ask for the public’s patience and cooperation during this time.”
#1: The US Government Mandate of testing within 24 hours of travel is unacceptable as they are making trouble for numerous other countries dealing with backlogs of results. VERY UNREASONABLE! I Knew from when I first read this that It would not work without failures.
#2: Bermuda Gov’t fell into the hands of this mandate only to fail. The first person who couldn’t get their result to fly on time was a person to many. No plan was demonstrated at the start of this situation. As always our government is ‘playing catch-up’ way to many times. I would venture to say that any ‘thinking person’ could easy see this situation happening in the short term. This is how Governments in general fail their citizens and cause much deep, unnecessary stress to ‘their Taxpayers’. THIS IS THE WORLD WE LIVE IN!
We have had way more active cases than this in the pass and now how convenient for them to say they can’t cope?? This is just more BS and hype to introduce something else . Stay tuned
The problem is from requiring everyone to take 3 PCR test within a 10 day period once in Bermuda. Day 1, Day 4 and Day 10.
You need to take day 4 and 10!!!!!!!!!
I find it amazing how the Government will go the extra mile for the fully vaccinated, because there is no unvaccinated travelers leaving Bermuda, which gives a clear indication that the shedders, spreaders and transmitters are clearly the vaccinated.
Yet the Government will continually attack the unvaccinated for what is clearly a problem created by the fully vaccinated, you go figure. 2022 is about to be a very interesting year.
Are we supposed to be happy the government have reacted like this? All of this testing pressure is a result of the governments own rules, travel testing, schools testing etc.
If we’re happy to continue with this way of working then the government need to seriously staff the testing centres, it’s simply unacceptable what is happening right now. It is not rocket science, we know the number of school kids and teachers, we know the number of travellers because we don’t have that many flights a day and we demand people complete authorisation forms, and we know the number in quarantine and when they are released from said quarantine so the volumes cannot be a surprise!
We need to wake up and recognise that whilst people may be infected nobody is in hospital, ergo the vaccines are working so let’s open up, get on with life and forget this testing nonsense, nobody else in the world is operating a regime like Bermuda.
So will the airport be open and the testers in place at 04:35 am to accommodate the passengers on the AA flight to Miami departing at 08:35 am?
We were tested on January first at the Perot Post office location for out flight to the US on the 2nd. We out by 10:20 am. When our results were not received by the next morning we called the Covid/Travel Authorization Hot line and the only advice we were given was to reschedule our flight. No mention of Airport testing being available. The Government had our e mail addresses and phone numbers as we had to fill out Travel Authorization forms and the Government set up the timing of the outbound test. and to the best of our knowledge made no attempt to notify us of any difficulties in providing the results we needed to travel.
Correct, Bermuda only cared about getting your money, we’ve got that, so you can be on your way now.