 Hello and welcome to COVID Facts in 5, your comprehensive look at St. Tushar's management and mitigation of the novel coronavirus. I'm Huma DiMang. As St. Tushar continues the fight against COVID-19, we all need to play our part by following the necessary protocols. COVID-19 spreads through close contact with an infected person. It is therefore important to always wear a mask when in public. So important is frequent hand washing and sanitizing in the absence of soap and water. There is a lot of information out there on COVID-19, but there is also a lot of misinformation and confusion. Dr. Nicole Behrens from the Denry Respiratory Clinic answers some frequently asked questions. So you have symptoms of COVID-19, what should you do? First of all, you need to know what are the symptoms that are off-concerned. Do you have fever? Are you coughing? Do you have runny nose, shortness of breath, any malaise, do you feel tired? Are you having loss of taste, loss of smell, body pains? These symptoms are important. So if you are experiencing these symptoms, we advise you to go to the respiratory clinic that is nearest to you. We have respiratory clinics in Viewfort, Denry, Lacklery and the Grosillais Polyclinic. This is where we will serve you with priority. That means once you have these symptoms and you go to this respiratory clinic, you will be given the opportunity to see a physician who will assess you and from there they will do a swab or a COVID test to determine whether or not you have COVID-19. If you are afraid to take the test, don't worry, there are many persons who are fearful like you but I can assure you it is very simple. First of all, when you go to the respiratory clinic, the doctor will explain to you this procedure. We will be using a swab with a long stick and a little cotton or fiber at the end. Then they will put the swab into your nasal canal. They will gently roll this swab into the back of the nose where we call the nasal pharyngeal region. This is the area at the back of the nose which connects to your throat and this is where we get the best sample of your secretions. After this swab is put inside the nose, we gently pull it out and the swab will be sent to the lab. Everyone at your office has COVID-19 therefore this person has been confirmed with the virus so you must ask yourself the following questions. Have I been in this person's presence for 15 minutes in an enclosed area? If you have then you should also do the COVID-19 test. Were you in close contact with this person in terms of physical contact? Were you someone who constantly or were you someone who received any secretions through coughing or sneezing from this person? If this is the case, you should go to get tested. However, if you have no symptoms, you should count seven days from when you have found out that this person is positive before you go to your respiratory clinic. Quarantine is important because this prevents you or anyone who may be suspected from spreading COVID-19. This is a technique that we have used to prevent or to hinder, to slow down the spread of COVID-19 so it is very important that if you are asked to quarantine that you remain there until you receive a call indicating whether you are positive or negative. I know it can be frustrating if you do not have any symptoms, you do not feel sick and therefore you do not feel the need to remain in quarantine. However, there are persons who can be asymptomatic and be spreading the virus. Also, you may at that time feel fine however shortly after symptoms may occur. So the best thing to do would be to wait for your medical professional or someone from the Ministry of Health to give you a call to indicate your results. This would delay the spread of COVID-19 and we hopefully will go back to a better place, a safer place in St. Lucia. Thank you Dr. Behrens for the pertinent information. Join us next time for another COVID-19 Facts in 5. I'm Humedy Moang.