Hypertension, diabetes, obesity cases among 90% of covid19 deaths

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said 90 per cent of TT’s 50 covid19 deaths had comorbidities.

He and other health officials were speaking at a press conference hosted by the Prime Minister at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s.

Director at the Caura Hospital, Dr Michelle Trotman said the most common comorbidities in those who died were hypertension, obesity and diabetes. In a few cases, there were people who died under the age of 50, or with no comorbidities.

She said some of those patients had happy hypoxia, where their oxygen levels were low but they felt happy and well. Some of the 50 deaths occurred because patients felt well and removed the oxygen prescribed to them.

Epidemiologist at the Ministry of Health, Dr Avery Hinds added that TT was not seeing the slowdown of covid19 that health authorities were looking for, but they were seeing signs of a reduction in the daily positive count.

He, therefore, encouraged people to continue following the health restriction and guidelines so as to, hopefully, continue that reduction.