Dr Hinds: Covid19 infections 'relatively steady'

There has been one death and 16 new cases of covid19 in TT.

The Ministry of Health's covid19 update, at 4 pm on Saturday, noted the samples were taken during the period December 2 to 4, and that five of the 16 were from Tobago.

Epidemiologist Dr Avery Hinds had earlier said it was of interest that up to November 26 there were no active covid19 cases in Tobago but since then, there had been 19.

Speaking at the covid19 press conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s on Saturday, he said the numbers highlighted the importance of not travelling when ill, and having all necessary precautions and protocols in place and followed in any setting.

“(This) speaks to the risk that there is in individuals who are ill and either asymptomatic or ill and suppressing their symptoms then moving between the islands. We went from a state where there weren’t any cases in Tobago to a state where there have been a couple clusters related to travel from Trinidad to Tobago.”

Despite that, he said if the cases from the prisons were excluded, the number of new cases in the general population was “holding relatively steady” over the past two weeks.

Also, the country’s covid19 statistics have remained relatively unchanged – approximately the same number of men and women were contracting the virus, about 75 per cent of the fatalities were male, and about 80 per cent of the fatalities had one or more comorbidities.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram recounted the covid19 update for Friday, noting that 42 people were in hospital including 23 at Couva with one in the Intensive Care Unit, three at Caura, two in St Ann’s, and 14 in Scarborough.

There were 22 at step down facilities with 11 in Claxton Bay, ten at UWI, Debe, and one in Tobago.

The figures did not change in the Saturday update.

It went on to note that the number of deaths was now at 122 and the number of active cases was 722.

A total of 642 people have been home-quarantined under the continuous monitoring of the respective county medical officer of health offices, including the 186 from the prison system.

There were also 214 in state quarantine. Parasram said there were 15 at Debe Hall, two at UWI Freedom Hall, five at the Chancellor hotel, 31 at Cascadia Hotel, 18 at Paria Suites, 43 at Kapok, and 37 at the Regent Star.

The number of positive cases is 6,751 and the number recovered is 5,907.