Dr Hinds: Deaths, case numbers gradually decreasing

Epidemiologist Dr Avery Hinds said there has been a slow decline in the number of cases daily and weekly in January. He said while the more transmissible omicron variant was present in TT, the ministry did not expect to see a massive downward trend in the numbers.

At the Health Ministry’s media conference on Wednesday, he said the curve moving from November to December has flattened.

“There were 14,032 cases in November, 20,528 cases in December, and 19,650 in January. There was a small change of 11 per cent between epidemiological weeks three and four, with a decrease in percentage positivity from 67 per cent to 57 per cent. Based on previous months, the percentage of deaths trails the number of cases by a few weeks.

“Even though we’re only testing people with high exposure and those who are symptomatic, this decrease in percentage is a potentially hopeful trend.

“The total for January was below that of December, so we are waiting to see what kind of trend might be possible. We’re hoping to see a decline, although the possibility remains of an increase in cases or a sustained high number due to the presence of the omicron variant.”

Hinds said as students in Form 1-3 go back out to school, the best way to slow the spread of the virus is to have as much of the school-age population vaccinated as possible. He said they have the opportunity to take the Pfizer vaccine.

Hinds said while the ministry would like to be able to collect data on reinfections as is being done in the UK, it would not be able to do so owing to a lack of resources.

“With our system...we’ll probably miss quite a few of those reinfections especially if they’re mild. And the ones that do reappear, it can be difficult in some cases to determine if this is a reinfection or a reappearance of debris after an old infection. So the ability to make those distinctions without further immunological investigation is difficult and, because of that, it’s not going to be one of the areas of focus as we count cases going forward.”

Hinds reminded that even though tests are being done daily, there was a lack of resources in being able to get the test results to people owing to the large numbers of active positive cases, which have to be followed up by the limited number of staff in the county medical offices.

Principal Medical Officer Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards said people could call 800-WELL and 877-WELL, as well as checking social media for the information put out by their relevant county medical officer of health office, in order to enquire about their results.