On Saturday, The Bahamas recorded its highest one day rise in COVID-19 cases. Nine additional cases were reported by the Ministry of Health.
Of the nine new cases, seven are on Grand Bahama and two are on New Providence.
Among the new Grand Bahama cases is a 45-year-old man with a history of travel. He is being treated in hospital.
Two men - ages 47 and 42 - and three women - ages 47, 54 and 36 - also make up the new cases on that island.
On New Providence, a 55-year-old man with no history of travel is also in hospital after becoming infected with COVID-19. The other New Providence case is a 53-year-old man who recently travelled. He is at home in isolation.
This is the highest number of cases reported in a single day. The Ministry reported three new cases on Wednesday, five new cases on Thursday and five on Friday.
This brings the total number of confirmed cases in The Bahamas to 138. There are 96 cases on New Providence; 28 on Grand Bahama; 13 on Bimini and 1 on Cat Cay.
This drastic spike comes on the heels of the announcement that Health Consultant in the Office of the Prime Minister, Dr. Merceline Dahl-Regis would be “stepping aside from day-to-day operations” as the COVID-19 lead coordinator.
Just last week, Dr. Dahl-Regis admitted that there is suspicion of persons presenting fraudulent COVID-19 test results to enter Grand Bahama, which could see new restrictions when Prime Minister Dr. Hubert Minnis addresses the nation today at 5PM.
Some have predicted Minnis will announce a lockdown on Grand Bahama, which has more than double the number of cases Bimini had when residents there endured a two-week lockdown.
However, members of parliament on Grand Bahama have advised against this and warned that their ailing economy cannot take a lockdown.
Health officials have attributed the expected increase in cases to travel to the United States, which has 3.78 million coronavirus cases.
There were 259,848 new Covid-19 cases reported to the World Health Organization in the last 24 hours, according to a WHO situation report.
The total number of cases worldwide reported to WHO is now 13.8 million.