TT’s five deaths fit global elderly criteria

TT’S FIVE covid19 deaths have all been among elderly people with preexisiting conditons especially diabetes, hypertension, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said Wednesday. “The best thing for us to do this week and next week is simply stay home.

Reduce the number of new infections, especially those 19,000 odd people who came in last Sunday before the borders were closed. The fate of this country lies largely in your hands. If those ppl stay home and the rest of non-essential people stay home and we go into a state of dormancy, we can and will beat this,” Deyalsingh said.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram gave an update on the patients at Couva and Caura. As it stands in TT, there are 89 positive covid19 cases.

One person has been discharged, five people have died and three are in isolation. There are five people in Caura, all of whom are stable and not in need of support. There is one person in Scarborough who is intubated and on a ventilator. At Couva, there are 75 patients warded, two in intensive care and 14 people in a high dependency ward, with one person under observation. Fifty-nine people warded have mild or no symptoms at all. Parasam said that within that group, health officials are looking at them to see if they have seven days with no symptoms. Once that happens they get swabbed. Once they are negative, they get a second swab within 24 hours. If that is negative, they are discharged.

“We are looking at alternative locations between Caura and other facilities so we can decamp the people with no symptoms and doing very well out of Couva soon as we can. As soon as we get a place better suited for that category of patient we will move them as soon as we can so we will only have medium and high level patients at Couva.”