Abdool-Richards: Small increase in covid19 rolling average

Principal Medical Officer Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards said the Ministry of Health has noticed a slight increase in the rolling average of covid19 cases per day.

Abdool-Richards was speaking at the Ministry of Health's virtual press conference on Monday. She said on Sunday there were 188 covid19 cases, which resulted in a slight increase in the rolling average from 181 on Saturday to 191 on Sunday.

But she also said the ministry has noticed an overall decreasing trend since May 28.

Ward occupancy, where the least ill patients are managed, is at 37 per cent, she said.

“Yet again, we have noticed a slow but consistent decline in occupancy.”

She said ward occupancy in Trinidad is 43 per cent and in Tobago 23 per cent.

“The actual number of patients in hospital is 433 patients.”

This is made up of 312 people in hospitals and 121 in step-down facilities.

There has been a slow decline in the number of patients in parallel healthcare facilities, but she said there are three times as many ill patients and recovering patients, resulting in more resources being required in the parallel healthcare system.

“Another trend we continue to notice is the high percentage in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) for the critically ill and High Dependency Units (HDU) for the severely ill. The resources required are much more than (those needed for) ward-level patients.”

These resources include ventilation, dialysis, and special beds.

She said despite a decrease in occupancy, ICU levels remain high, with an overall 83 per cent of ICU beds filled. In Trinidad 85 per cent are filled and in Tobago, all five ICU beds are filled.

She said these figures demonstrate the clinical severity of the virus.

"We continue to see very critical and severely ill patients requiring additional resources.”

She said HDU patients – the step between ward-level patients and ICU patients – continue to fluctuate and as of Monday morning the HDUs were at 56 per cent capacity. But the average has been 83 per cent since May 28.