Sandals Grenada makes a sigh of relief on Friday (January 1) as all 432 of its staff and guests have been cleared of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) during a retesting exercise last week.

However, Barbados Today reports that it was not immediately clear whether Grenada’s Ministry of Health had confirmed the negative results.

The St George’s-based property, which was linked to an outbreak of coronavirus cases back on December 13, remains closed until February 3.

In a statement released to local media, Sandals Grenada reported that during a COVID-19 retesting exercise, all 432 staff and guests have returned negative PCR test results. The second round of testing was reportedly conducted by Grenada’s Ministry of Health on December 23.

According to the statement, “the 14 team members originally identified as part of the ‘cluster’ were also retested soon after, and so far 12 have received negative PCR test results. The results of two remain pending.”

The initial report out of Grenada was that a cluster of 26 positive COVID-19 cases had been identified at the Sandals resort on the spice island. The positive cases included guests and employees as well as their contacts.

Retesting done on visitors on their return home

According to the Sandals statement, most of the guests identified as being positive, were retested immediately upon their return to the United States from Grenada with nine of them receiving negative results.

The statement further noted that the individuals had both PCR and antigen tests, confirming that they do not have or ever had any trace of the virus in their system.

The hotel in its prepared statement declared that it is currently awaiting the results of one couple. Despite declaring that all staff and guests have been cleared of COVID-19, the resort remains closed to new arrivals.  Sandals Grenada General Manager, Peter Fraser called reports linking the outbreak to his resort “completely unsubstantiated” and bashed the Grenadian for not correcting such reports.

Days later, the Sandals Resort deputy chairman announced the closure of the Grenada resort until Feb. 3, blaming the decision not on the outbreak but the government’s own indecision.