24 deaths, 707 new covid19 cases recorded

As the number of active covid19 cases continues to climb, 707 new cases were recorded from samples taken between December 13 and 16.

The Health Ministry’s covid19 update on Friday said there are now 14,885 active cases.

The number of deaths now stands at 2,527, as 24 deaths were reported over the last 24 hours.

Since March 2020, there have been 83,837 cases of covid19, of which 66,425 have recovered.

It said the people who died were seven elderly men, 11 elderly women, four middle-aged men, and two middle-aged women. Of these, 18 had multiple comorbidities, including a mix of diabetes, hypertension, kidney disease, thyroid disease, dementia, asthma, heart disease and obesity, Down Syndrome, and a history of strokes. Four people each had only either diabetes or hypertension as a single comorbidity, while two people had no known comorbidities.

There are 502 patients in hospital. Of these, 97 are at the Couva Hospital and Multi-Training Facility, with 16 in the intensive care unit and 28 in the high dependency unit. There are 75 people at the Caura Hospital, 52 at the Augustus Long Hospital, 26 at the St Ann’s Hospital, 70 at the Arima General Hospital, 86 at the new Point Fortin Hospital, 56 at the St James Medical Complex, 30 at the Scarborough Regional Hospital, Fort King George and ten at the Scarborough Regional Hospital, Signal Hill.

There are 175 patients in step-down facilities, with none at the Claxton Bay Correctional Facility, 42 at UWI Debe, 31 at UTT Valsayn, 29 at the Point Fortin Area Hospital, 27 at the Port of Spain field hospital, 18 at the Couva Field Hospital, 13 at the Tacarigua Facility, and 15 in Tobago.

There are 61 people in state quarantine facilities, and 13,501 people in home self-isolation. There are 369 recovered community cases and 90 people have been discharged from public health facilities.

The ministry said 88.1 per cent or 6,789 of 7,626 patients in the parallel healthcare system were unvaccinated, based on data from July 22-December 1.

The update said the total number of people vaccinated with their first dose of a two-dose regime was 655,313. Of these, 120,100 took the AstraZeneca vaccine, 416,619 took Sinopharm, and 118,594 the Pfizer vaccine.

The number of people vaccinated with their second dose was 611,930, while the number of people vaccinated with the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine was 46,823.

There are 658,753 people who have been fully vaccinated out of an eligible 1.1 million people.

A total of 51,790 people have received an additional primary dose or a booster dose.

The number of people tested in both public and private facilities is 484,050, of which 210,784 were done at private facilities.