No Tobago covid19 cases, officials brace for Easter influx

IT'S been two weeks since Tobago recorded a case of the covid19 virus, but health officials say they are preparing for the expected influx of visitors from Trinidad for the Easter weekend.

Tobago Hotel and Tourism Association president Chris James recently told Newsday villas are almost fully booked for the Easter period.

James said, “Easter weekend has seen an increase in bookings and presently stands at 49 per cent across all property types with villas and self-catering doing best.”

For January and February, occupancy stood at around 16 per cent with villas and self-catering properties again the preferred options.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Acting County Medical Officer of Health Dr Tiffany Hoyte provided a statistical review of the virus' presence on the island over the past year.

Tobago currently has no active cases but has recorded a total of 159 cases.

To date, she said the highest daily case number recorded in Tobago was 12 which resulted from an outbreak at the Tobago prison.

The youngest person to contract the virus was a five-month-old baby and the eldest was an 84-year-old.

She also noted that 16 per cent of the island's cases were younger than 18 but there has been no case of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C).

Thirty per cent of patients were asymptomatic and 26 per cent had co-morbidities, with the most common being hypertension, asthma and diabetes.

But she said even though there are no active cases, "We cannot afford to become complacent.

"We are collaborating closely with our tourism stakeholders and the police, etc...We recognise that persons have started to try and resume business at full occupancy, which is not supposed to be the case. So for all our tourism stakeholders, whether it be the hoteliers the tour operators, we are having discussions again."

Dr Roxanne Mitchell, acting general manager, Primary Care Services, says the Tobago Regional Health Authority also urged the public to get vaccinated once the public rollout begins.

Mitchell, who received the vaccine, said she experienced certain side effects like soreness at the site of the jab, fatigue and eye pain. She said this means the vaccine is working.

Tobagonians will be able to use online methods of making appointments to get vaccinated, including SMS text messages, Whatsapp messages and online forms.

Tobago is expected to get around 3,000 vaccines from the first Covax tranche.