Rishard Khan
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt
The country has recorded two additional COVID-19 related deaths and 82 new cases within the last 24 hours. This makes four deaths and 296 cases to be recorded for the week.
This is almost as many cases as recorded in March (310) and over twice that recorded in February (146).
According to the Ministry of Health’s daily update, yesterday’s fatalities were both adult females with multiple comorbidities and brought the death toll up to 150.
The newly confirmed COVID-19 cases came from samples collected between April 12 and 14.
However, three of the new cases were from recently repatriated nationals while four were in Tobago.
These cases make 606 cases to be recorded in the first 15 days of April, surpassing the total number of cases for the past two months cumulatively.
It also makes 8,678 to be recorded in the country since March 12, 2020.
Cases began to slowly climb in early March after dipping to an all-time low since the country’s second phase of infection first started on July 20, 2020.
By April, the cases began to spread more rapidly. The spread occurred so quickly that the Ministry of Health began genomic sequencing of locally collected samples to ensure there were no variants of concern circulating within the population.
With the increasing cases, the Equal Opportunity Commission’s Chaguanas office was closed yesterday for sanitisation after two members of staff were in direct contact with persons who tested positive for COVID-19.
Within recent days several other places were also closed for sanitisation such as the Election and Boundaries Commission’s (EBC) head office, the TTPS Finance Branch, the T&T Electricity Commission’s (T&TEC) head office, a University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) campus, the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) offices and some Magistrates’ Courts.
It’s unsurprising as the Ministry of Health’s Epidemiology Division’s technical director Dr Avery Hinds revealed on Wednesday that COVID-19 cases weren’t only increasing but was also spreading geographically.
Despite the increasing number of cases, the number of people to have recovered from the virus also increased to 7,843 after the ministry released 25 people under its care; four people were discharged from public health facilities while 21 people were released from home self-isolation as recovered community cases.
Despite these releases, the number of active cases rose to 685; 78 people were in hospitals- five of which were in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and High Dependency Unit (HDU), 520 were in home self-isolation and five people were in step down facilities. There were 331 people in state quarantine facilities.
The ministry also administered 1,401 doses of vaccines making 13,087 people in the country to be inoculated during the first phase of the national vaccination drive.
The second phase is carded to begin tomorrow