Covid19 team member: Virus on decline in Tobago

Covid19 is on the decline in Tobago, says Dr Anthony Thompson, covid19 response team member in the Office of the County Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) .

Thompson was addressing the media virtually on Thursday during the THA Division of Health, Wellness and Family Development’s news conference.

He said: “The data is encouraging, but we have to bear in mind that there are still enough circulating cases in the community for us to be mindful that the war is not over.

"Things are looking better, and it is great encouragement for a very tired healthcare team, but we need to keep doing what we’re doing – the healthcare team as well as the public co-operating with the measures that are responsible for this decline.”

Giving the weekly summary for June 18-24, he said 31 new cases were recorded, along with four deaths. Active cases, he said, stood at 119, with 89 cases in home isolation.

He said in terms of the seven-day average for active cases, it had plateaued and declined over the last week.

“So that’s an encouraging sign.”

On the seven-day average for new cases, he said it had peaked just over two weeks ago at just over 19.

“It has declined over the last week to a value of eight. This is the best value we’ve recorded since late May.”

But he added: “However, we need to keep an eye on the sample positivity rate, which declined over the last week to just over 15 per cent, but has rebounded somewhat over week 14 to just over 17 per cent. This is in part due to the fact that as we record fewer cases and have fewer asymptomatic primary contacts to test, we still get people coming through the testing services for symptomatic (patients who) have a higher chance of testing positive. So the rebound is not altogether unexpected.”