Rishard Khan
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt
Another elderly man became T&T latest COVID-19 fatality yesterday, according to the Ministry of Health, bringing the total death number of deaths from the virus locally to 84. The ministry said the man had pre-existing medical conditions.
There were also 41 additional cases recorded yesterday from some 309 samples submitted for testing to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), UWI and other local sites. This brought the total number of infections recorded in the country to 4,887.
Despite the new cases, the total active dropped to 1,782 after 59 people were released from the ministry’s care. Seven were discharged from public health facilities while 52 were released from home isolation as recovered community cases. This makes 3,010 people who have recovered from the virus locally.
Speaking during the ministry’s virtual press conference yesterday, however, Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram said from today, there will only be one update released per day at 4 pm.
“We think it’s a simpler graphic to follow. There are icons which will resonate with each category and from tomorrow at 4, we would be going towards this format of press release,” Parasram said.
He said the releases will contain most of the same information as the updates the country had grown accustomed to since March. One difference, he noted, will be the categories for “number of persons discharged from public health facilities” and “recovered community cases,” which will now be amalgamated into one category - “total recovered cases.”
This is not the first time the ministry has amended its update schedule. At its peak in the early stages of COVID-19 infections locally, the ministry provided updates twice daily. During the peak of the first phase of infections, updates were provided three times daily and was subsequently reduced to twice daily after there was a lull in reported cases.
However, Parasram noted that additional breakdown of cases and information could be accessed via the ministry’s website.
“The entire press release as we now send it out will also be available on our website so that additional information can be gotten for the step-downs, for the quarantine facilities and further breakdowns can be provided in that format,” he said.