Kalain Ho­sein

In the high­est week­ly jump in COVID-19 cas­es since Oc­to­ber 4, 2022, the Min­istry of Health re­port­ed 519 new COVID-19 cas­es yes­ter­day. These new cas­es were record­ed be­tween Jan­u­ary 10 and 16.

The sev­en-day rolling av­er­age of COVID-19 cas­es, mean­ing the num­ber of new COVID-19 cas­es record­ed dai­ly dur­ing the sev­en days, al­so rose to 74 cas­es a day on av­er­age, mark­ing a high since Oc­to­ber 2022.

The min­is­ter al­so re­port­ed 12 new COVID-19 fa­tal­i­ties dur­ing the pe­ri­od, mark­ing the high­est week­ly jump since Oc­to­ber 11, 2022, in­clud­ing one per­son with­out un­der­ly­ing health con­di­tions. The de­ceased in­clud­ed four el­der­ly males, five el­der­ly fe­males, one mid­dle-aged male and two mid­dle-aged fe­males. Hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions are al­so at a record high since Oc­to­ber 18, 2022, with 71 pa­tients now ward­ed in the pub­lic health­care sys­tem.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, 48 pa­tients are ward­ed in the par­al­lel health­care sys­tem, which in­cludes the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, the Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal, Ari­ma Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and the Scar­bor­ough Re­gion­al Hos­pi­tal.

Twen­ty-three pa­tients are al­so ward­ed with­in what the Health Min­istry calls the “Hy­brid Sys­tem.” These fa­cil­i­ties in­clude the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, which are now equipped to treat and ward COVID-19 pa­tients with­out trans­fer to the par­al­lel health­care sys­tem.

In ad­di­tion, 25 pa­tients have been dis­charged from pub­lic health fa­cil­i­ties, while 516 peo­ple who were in home self-iso­la­tion have re­cov­ered from the dis­ease in the last week. There are cur­rent­ly 124 pa­tients in home-self iso­la­tion, while there are no pa­tients in step-down fa­cil­i­ties across T&T.

Amidst a re­newed roll­out of the na­tion’s vac­ci­na­tion cam­paign for in­fluen­za and COVID-19, over the last week, 1,864 dos­es of a COVID-19 vac­cine were ad­min­is­tered, with 1,724 peo­ple re­ceiv­ing a COVID-19 boost­er. This jump marked the high­est week­ly in­crease in COVID-19 boost­ers dis­trib­uted since June 29th, 2022.