(AP) — As the rag­ing omi­cron vari­ant of COVID-19 in­fects work­ers across the na­tion, mil­lions of those whose jobs don’t pro­vide paid sick days are hav­ing to choose be­tween their health and their pay­check.

Nine­teen more peo­ple have lost their lives to COVID-19, with thir­teen of those peo­ple suf­fer­ing from co­mor­bidi­ties.  The Min­istry of Health’s up­date for to­day, Sun­day 9 Jan­u­ary 2022, re­ports that these lat­est deaths have pushed the na­tion­al toll to 3,066 lives lost.

Pub­lic ser­vants re­main di­vid­ed over whether they should be vac­ci­nat­ed or not with the Gov­ern­ment’s manda­to­ry dead­line loom­ing with­in the next two weeks. The choice they face is ei­ther get­ting vac­ci­nat­ed or stay­ing home with­out a pay­check.

The Gov­ern­ment should have a plan on how the pub­lic sec­tor will be man­aged if it is to pre­vent a break­down of ser­vices once the Gov­ern­ment “safe zone” ini­tia­tive at Gov­ern­ment work­places is im­ple­ment­ed by mid-Jan­u­ary.

WASH­ING­TON (AP) — The Supreme Court is tak­ing up two ma­jor Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion ef­forts to bump up the na­tion’s vac­ci­na­tion rate against COVID-19 at a time of spik­ing coro­n­avirus cas­es be­cause of the omi­cron vari­ant.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s death toll for COVID-19 has crossed the three-thou­sand mark, with 18 new deaths push­ing the to­tal to 3,010 lives lost, the Min­istry of Health re­port­ed in its up­date for Fri­day 7 Jan­u­ary 2022.

An an­nounce­ment will be made as soon as next week about the new pro­posed site for the mass cold-stor­age unit for Covid-19 vic­tims, Pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Fu­ner­al Home Pro­fes­sion­als of T&T, Kei­th Bel­grove, told Guardian Me­dia to­day.

(AP) — How do I know if I have a cold, the flu or COVID-19? Ex­perts say test­ing is the best way to de­ter­mine what you have since symp­toms of the ill­ness­es can over­lap.

A 25-year-old woman with co­mor­bidi­ties is the lat­est COVID-19 vic­tim in To­ba­go, ac­cord­ing to the up­date for Thurs­day 6 Jan­u­ary 2022, re­leased by the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion, in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).

■ Gov­ern­ments across the world are tight­en­ing re­stric­tions as the Omi­cron vari­ant con­tin­ues to dri­ve up COVID-19 cas­es glob­al­ly ■

The Health Min­istry met with the Po­lice Ser­vice on Wednes­day morn­ing to plan a fur­ther en­hanced crack­down on false vac­ci­na­tion cards, as the gov­ern­ment moves to make the Pub­lic Ser­vice a qua­si safe zone on Jan­u­ary 17th.

The Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC) is call­ing for a com­plete over­haul of the health sys­tem in Trinidad and To­ba­go, along with the cur­rent strate­gies be­ing em­ployed in the fight against Covid 19.