Kalain Ho­sein

An­oth­er som­bre day for T&T as for the first time in the COVID-19-pan­dem­ic his­to­ry, the coun­try has record­ed re­lat­ed deaths above 20 in the 24-hour re­port­ing pe­ri­od.

The Min­istry of Health re­port­ed that 21 peo­ple have suc­cumbed to the virus, mark­ing the dead­liest day yet for T&T.

Thir­teen of those who died had co­mor­bidi­ties, in­clud­ing five el­der­ly fe­males, three mid­dle-aged fe­males, four el­der­ly males, and one mid­dle-aged male.

The re­main­ing eight peo­ple did not have sig­nif­i­cant un­der­ly­ing med­ical con­di­tions, in­clud­ing one el­der­ly fe­male, three mid­dle-aged fe­males, one el­der­ly male, two mid­dle-aged males, and, con­cern­ing­ly, one young adult male.

T&T’s death toll has risen to 256, with 87 deaths re­port­ed in the last 13 days.

The first five months of 2021 now have a high­er death toll than all of 2020, with 129 deaths ver­sus 127 deaths.

T&T’s mor­tal­i­ty rate for May 2021 is now at 2.18 per cent, mean­ing that at least two peo­ple may die for every 100 cas­es of COVID-19 T&T records.

COVID-19 cas­es con­tin­ue to climb

Yes­ter­day, the min­istry re­port­ed 397 new COVID-19 cas­es, mark­ing the fourth-high­est jump in dai­ly re­port­ed cas­es for the pan­dem­ic to date. These cas­es orig­i­nat­ed from sam­ples tak­en dur­ing the last 72 hours from May 9 through May 12.

T&T’s to­tal COVID-19 cas­es now stand at 14,814, with a record high of 4,814 cas­es con­sid­ered ac­tive.

Ac­tive cas­es in­clude COVID-19 pos­i­tive peo­ple iso­lat­ed at home, in step-down fa­cil­i­ties, or hos­pi­tals across the coun­try.

The Min­istry of Health has in­di­cat­ed that the coun­try’s pos­i­tiv­i­ty rate now stands above 40 per cent. This means for every 100 sam­ples col­lect­ed for test­ing, at least 40 would re­turn COVID-19 pos­i­tive.

The num­ber of re­cov­er­ies has al­so in­creased.

The min­istry re­port­ed 37 pa­tients dis­charged from pub­lic health fa­cil­i­ties, and there have been 113 re­cov­ered cas­es for those who were COVID-19 pos­i­tive and self-iso­lat­ing at home. With 150 be­ing re­port­ed re­cov­ered in the last 24 hours, this marked the sev­enth-high­est jump in re­cov­ered cas­es.

2nd high­est num­ber of hos­pi­talised pa­tients

Hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els re­main high across the coun­try. How­ev­er, with the in­creased deaths and re­cov­er­ies in the last 24 hours, there has been min­i­mal ease on the par­al­lel health­care sys­tem’s strain.

With a to­tal of 342 in hos­pi­tal, this marks the sec­ond-high­est num­ber of pa­tients since the pan­dem­ic be­gan, tied with May 9, 2021. T&T’s over­all COVID-19 hos­pi­tal oc­cu­pan­cy stands at 50 per cent across all lev­els of care in both is­lands, with a slight­ly high­er 53 per cent when on­ly ac­count­ing for Trinidad’s beds.

Based on the lat­est num­bers from the Min­istry of Health, there are 137 hos­pi­talised at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, mark­ing a 63 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy.

The Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal cur­rent­ly is at a 75 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy lev­el.

At the Ari­ma Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, there is a 64 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy. The Au­gus­tus Long Hos­pi­tal is re­port­ing a 96 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy. The St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal, with ten beds avail­able for psy­chi­atric pa­tients who test COVID-19 pos­i­tive, re­main at ze­ro per cent ca­pac­i­ty.

Health of­fi­cials have warned that T&T’s par­al­lel health­care sys­tem may be over­whelmed by Mon­day based on cur­rent trends.

T&T’s par­al­lel health­care sys­tem now has a to­tal of 682 hos­pi­tal beds avail­able. This count does not in­clude the two mil­i­tary field hos­pi­tals, adding 40 beds each, lo­cat­ed now at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty and the Jean Pierre Com­plex in Port-of-Spain.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Val­sayn cam­pus is now at 100 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy with all 40 beds oc­cu­pied.

At the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ Debe cam­pus, 68 per cent of beds are oc­cu­pied.

At the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal, there are no COVID-19 pa­tients ward­ed.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry’s num­bers, the In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU) and High De­pen­den­cy Unit (HDU) at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal high, at nine and 55, re­spec­tive­ly.

This re­sults in a 50 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy at Cou­va’s ICU. The hos­pi­tal’s HDU ca­pac­i­ty is vari­able, as the dif­fer­ence be­tween a ward-lev­el bed and an HDU bed means the re­quire­ment of oxy­gen via a face mask for a pa­tient and an in­creased nurse-to-pa­tient ra­tio.

To­ba­go’s ac­tive cas­es have de­clined on Thurs­day, down to 65 ac­tive cas­es, the is­land’s 3rd high­est peak. The To­ba­go’s Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment re­port­ed one new case, and five pa­tients were dis­charged. To­ba­go’s hos­pi­tal oc­cu­pan­cy is at 25 per cent, with one pa­tient in ICU.