Mass screening of hospital staff for the coronavirus is yet to start because of a shortage of test equipment.Only seven Bermuda Hospitals Board employees had been tested for Covid-19 by last Sunday. There were no positive results.BHB chief of staff Michael Richmond told a press conference last night that 12 staff members were under quarantine.Cheryl Peek-Ball, the Chief Medical Officer, said: “There is a global shortage of testing supplies and so that is the struggle that we have here in Bermuda as well.“Ideally, individuals who are working in a high-risk profession should be tested preferentially, because they are with a vulnerable population, that is individuals who are not well. “And so if there were an abundance of supplies, an unlimited amount of supplies, indeed there would be very broad testing and we look to the day when that will occur, hopefully sooner rather than later.”Dr Peek-Ball, speaking on Monday, added that hospital employees with symptoms were tested fast and isolated.She said there was “a need to balance the surveillance — looking for Covid-19 infections in the community — with the supply of testing equipment that is currently available and, because there is currently a limit to that, we have to be very judicious in who is tested”.Some countries have prioritised mass testing of frontline hospital staff, whether they have symptoms or not, to safeguard them and their patients and reduce the spread of the virus. The BHB has about 800 doctors, nurses, nurses’ aides and emergency medical technicians.Staff are at present only tested if they have symptoms.A BHB spokeswoman said regular temperature checks were to be introduced for all staff, but that there was a “limited number” of Covid-19 test kits available.She added: “All employees who display symptoms related to Covid-19 are assessed by BHB’s employee health services team, to determine any possible exposure to Covid-19. “Based on this information, employees are referred to the Department of Health, which tests all referred BHB employees as a priority.“Testing of symptomatic healthcare workers is essential to infection control efforts.”The spokeswoman said hospital staff were not automatically tested if they had cared for a patient who had Covid-19 because of the test kit shortage.She added that “we are doing all we can to prevent transmission first, quarantining if exposure is a risk, and testing if symptomatic in line with government guidelines”.The spokeswoman said: “Protecting our staff with appropriate personal protective equipment use is our most critical priority. “This is why all patients are masked when they enter the facility and, if admitted, staff follow protective precautions as if the patient had Covid-19, until testing shows otherwise.”The spokeswoman said that as long as staff wore protective equipment and their kit was not compromised, they self-monitored their health. She added: “If there have been breaches — for example, a mistake putting on or taking off protective equipment or a tear of PPE in the room — or someone was exposed to a patient or someone at home who later is confirmed as Covid-19, they would call employee health services who would assess their risk of exposure. “A high risk, for example, would be someone who is with a patient for more than 15 minutes in close proximity — [that is] within six feet. “It is possible they may be quarantined at this stage and put in touch with the Department of Health. If they don’t show symptoms after 14 days, they can return to work. If they experience symptoms, they would be tested.”The spokeswoman confirmed that hospital workers were only tested if they had symptoms related to breathing — the same guidelines used for members of the public. But she added: “If more testing kits or different types of testing become available, this may well change.”Hospital staff must be quarantined for 14 days after symptoms start or three days after they cease, whichever is longer, also in line with rules used for the public.The spokeswoman said: “Families of anyone with Covid-19 should follow government advice on how to isolate unwell individuals, protect themselves, following advice on monitoring their own health and whether they should be under quarantine.”All patients at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital and the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute have been tested for Covid-19 on admission as a precaution since the start of the month. The spokeswoman said: “This protects staff and all the other patients they care for, as some people who are asymptomatic may be admitted for something that is unrelated and not have any known risk factors. “While we wait for the test, they are treated with the same level of protective precautions as Covid-19 patients.”The island’s first two hospital cases of Covid-19 were recorded at the end of last month. There were six people with Covid-19 in hospital, half of them in intensive care, on Monday.The World Health Organisation said the risk of contracting Covid-19 from someone with no symptoms was “very low”.But it warned that many people had only mild symptoms, particularly at the start of the disease, and that it was possible to catch the coronavirus from respiratory droplets from someone with a mild cough who did not feel ill.