The regular COVID-19 media releases from the Ministry of Health have now ceased after three years, two months, and nine days since the first update was issued on March 4th, 2020. On May 12th, the Ministry of Health said as a result of a low level of COVID-19 in circulation in Trinidad and Tobago with low levels of cases, deaths, hospitalizations, and positivity, the press releases in their current format would no longer be issued.
Between April 29th through May 12th, the seven-day rolling average of COVID-19 cases, meaning the number of new COVID-19 cases recorded daily during the seven-day-period is 10, down from two weeks ago, when the Ministry of Health was recording 13 cases per day on average, and the lowest rolling average in over two years, when it was ten on March 22nd, 2021.
Within the last two weeks, there has only been one COVID-19-related death. The positivity rate is 6.7 per cent, meaning of every patient tested at public and private healthcare facilities, 6.7 out of every 100 people were positive.
The Ministry of Health notes that there are no patients in the intensive care unit and high dependency unit for the second fortnightly period in a row, with an average of 19 patients in hospitals across the parallel and hybrid healthcare systems. The hybrid healthcare system includes facilities like 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 that only houses COVID-19-positive patients.
The Ministry notes that this data is indeed encouraging, especially within an environment with very few public health restrictions at this time.
Over the course of 1,250 COVID-19 media releases from the Ministry of Health, T&T has recorded over 191,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 4,391 COVID-19 deaths.
According to the Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization ended its declaration of COVID-19 as a global health emergency on May 5th, 2023, which signalled the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Ministry of Health.
In a statement, the Ministry of Health is reminding the public, particularly the vulnerable (those with chronic diseases, the elderly, pregnant patients, and the unvaccinated), that they should continue to maintain the principles and practice of good hygiene as these measures will assist in the maintenance of our low levels of transmission of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.