CPS says thank you to all volunteers who participated in COVID-19 Community Outreach Campaign

The Collective Prevention Services (CPS), would like to thank all volunteers who participated over the two past two months in its COVID-19 Community Outreach Campaign that concluded on the fourth weekend of May. A special thanks is also extended to persons who set aside their time during the shutdown to ensure that hard-to-reach persons received the necessary preventive COVID-19 information and persons with flu-like symptoms could have been identified for follow-up by CPS. Those that took part in the outreach campaigns were: Community Awareness Volunteers (CAV), representing various entities and organizations, from AMI, the Red Cross, WIEMS, students from AUC, the fire departments from the Airport and the Government. During the past two-months, the teams visited thousands of homes and spoke with thousands of residents providing valuable accurate information and at the same time collecting data from those residents who have flu-like symptoms. During the final weekend of May 23/24, CPS staff and CAV visited the districts of Fort Willem, Philipsburg (Cannegieter Street), Hope Estate, South Reward, and St. Peters. The teams covered 805 households and 2561 persons.  CPS said that residents were very cooperative and happy to have someone share information with them and listen to their concerns. Some of the non-health-related concerns presented by residents were unemployment, job security, and having sufficient food. CPS reminds the Sint Maarten community to practice proper hygiene on a daily basis by maintaining two meters social distancing from other persons, practice good respiratory etiquettes such as coughing in your elbow and sneezing in a tissue and properly disposing of it in a bin, wash your hands frequently for at least 20 seconds with soap or use hand sanitizer with at least 60 percent alcohol-based, and clean often touched surfaces with disinfectant. CPS, a department from the Sint Maarten Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labour (Ministry VSA). CPS reminds the public: Do not wait to call your physician if you have flu-like symptoms; if you do not have a General Practitioner or cannot reach your physician: Call CPS at 914 without delay and; do not go to the Emergency Room of the St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) but call first when you are sick. Source: sintmaartengov.org