Rel­a­tives of the lat­est COVID-19 fa­tal­i­ty are not sure whether he caught the virus be­fore he was sent to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal or not. This is be­cause the Mo­ri­ah man ini­tial­ly sought treat­ment at the in­sti­tu­tion for an­oth­er med­ical is­sue and not the flu-like symp­toms as­so­ci­at­ed with the virus.

Af­ter the man was con­firmed as To­ba­go’s first COVID-19-re­lat­ed death and the coun­try’s sev­enth over­all yes­ter­day, rel­a­tives of the man said the con­tact trac­ing ahead could show that he may have con­tract­ed the virus from two pos­si­ble sources.

In the first in­stance, they said he was at a fu­ner­al last month which was at­tend­ed by sev­er­al rel­a­tives from abroad. How­ev­er, in the sec­ond sce­nario, they said the el­der­ly man, who is in his six­ties, pre­sent­ed him­self at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment for an­oth­er is­sue and it is pos­si­ble he con­tract­ed the virus there, af­ter the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment was con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed by an­oth­er pa­tient and medic who test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness, and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment (DHWFD), the man died at the SFG yes­ter­day morn­ing. Crit­i­cal pa­tients can­not be treat­ed at the hos­pi­tal and must be trans­port­ed to Trinidad. How­ev­er, the pa­tient was nev­er sta­ble enough for doc­tors to give the okay to trans­fer him to Trinidad for fur­ther treat­ment.

The man, a re­tired Pub­lic Health work­er, lived with his wife at Wood­lands, Mo­ri­ah. His im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly mem­bers are now in quar­an­tine.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that he was buried at the Buc­coo Pub­lic Ceme­tery yes­ter­day but there was no church ser­vice. The bur­ial was of­fi­ci­at­ed by Pas­tor Michael Williams of the Lam­beau Church of God. Three fam­i­ly mem­bers wit­nessed the bur­ial but apart from them, on­ly the pas­tor and gravedig­gers were present. All of them had to wear pro­tec­tive masks as a pre­cau­tion dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny.

To­ba­go’s first COVID case was an­nounced on March 23 while the sec­ond and third cas­es were on March 27 and 30 re­spec­tive­ly. The Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness, and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment (DHWFD) was not clear on which case the de­ceased was.

At a news con­fer­ence last week, Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health Dr Tiffany Hoyte re­vealed that con­tact trac­ing was on­go­ing for the three in­di­vid­u­als who had test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 on the is­land. In re­la­tion to pa­tient num­ber three, she said there were 26 pri­ma­ry con­tacts and five sec­ondary con­tacts who were quar­an­tined at that time. She said as con­tact trac­ing con­tin­ues there may be an in­crease in fig­ures.

The di­vi­sion al­so ex­plained that the el­der­ly male fa­tal­i­ty had a pre-ex­ist­ing med­ical con­di­tion. Guardian Me­dia al­so un­der­stands that he was on a ven­ti­la­tor pri­or to his death.

Out­lin­ing the To­ba­go sit­u­a­tion, the DHWFD said as of yes­ter­day, 74 COVID-19 sam­ples were sub­mit­ted to the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) lab­o­ra­to­ry, three test­ed pos­i­tive and 19 peo­ple had com­plet­ed quar­an­tine while 43 re­mained in quar­an­tine.

On Fri­day, the DHD­WD un­veiled COVID treat­ment fa­cil­i­ties at the old Scar­bor­ough hos­pi­tal at Fort King George and the SGH as it ramped up its abil­i­ty to re­spond to pos­si­ble pa­tients.

Up to yes­ter­day evening. Trinidad and To­ba­go had re­port­ed 105 over­all cas­es while 825 peo­ple had been test­ed for the virus, ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Min­istry of Health.