Bermuda makes top ten for testing - Royal Gazette

Fiona McWhirter

Published May 13, 2020 at 1:59 pm (Updated May 13, 2020 at 1:59 pm)

File photograph by Akil Simmons

Covid-19 testing meant that Bermuda became tenth in the world for screening per capita, according to an online data site.

Worldometer figures showed that the island performed 4,489 tests — the figure as of 3pm on Monday, which worked out at 72.08 per million people.

Ranked first was the Faeroe Islands where, according to the website, all 187 confirmed cases of the coronavirus have recovered.

The site showed that the country had carried out 8,554 tests, or 175.06 per million people.

David Burt, the Premier, tweeted on Monday night: “Following the 469 test results reported today, Bermuda is now #10 in the world in testing per capita.”

He added: “We’re not in a competition, but it’s great to see the hard work pay off.”

Mr Burt was asked by another Twitter user if additional test kits were expected to arrive in Bermuda.

He replied: “We have enough supplies on island to do over 100,000 tests — we may even offer some to our friends in the USA.

“We have three different tests to look for different Covid-19 genes.

“Started general population and antibody testing this past weekend and will do more this week.”

Iceland, Gibraltar, the United Arab Emirates and the Falkland Islands rounded out the top five countries for testing per capita, according to the Worldometer figures.

The same data shows that Bermuda is 35th for cases but 19th in terms of deaths when each is calculated per million people in the population.

The island recorded 119 cases and eight deaths by 3pm on Monday.

Worldometer explained that its teams collect and process data around the clock and their sources include the official websites of health ministries as well as other government bodies and social media accounts.

But it noted: “On a daily basis, we encounter an increasing number of reporting issues.

“Some of these include official governmental channels changing or retracting figures, or publishing contradictory data on different official outlets.

“National or state figures with old or incomplete data compared to regional, local — counties in the US — government’s reports is the norm, so we try to compensate by collecting the missing data and maintaining an accurate and timely count.”

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