The Min­istry of Health re­port­ed 272 new COVID-19 cas­es in the past week, down from last week’s 450 cas­es. The new pos­i­tive cas­es were record­ed be­tween March 22nd and March 28th. The sev­en-day rolling av­er­age of COVID-19 cas­es, mean­ing the num­ber of new COVID-19 cas­es record­ed dai­ly dur­ing the sev­en-day-pe­ri­od is 39, down from last week’s 64 cas­es per day on av­er­age.

There were four new COVID-19 fa­tal­i­ties re­port­ed with­in the last week. The de­ceased in­clud­ed three el­der­ly males and one el­der­ly fe­male. All of the four de­ceased had mul­ti­ple co­mor­bidi­ties. Year-to-date, of the 83 COVID-19-re­lat­ed deaths, 73 were not ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed. 4,372 peo­ple have died while test­ing pos­i­tive for COVID-19 in Trinidad and To­ba­go since the start of the pan­dem­ic.

Hos­pi­tal­iza­tions have trend­ed up­wards slight­ly, with 58 peo­ple ward­ed in hos­pi­tal on Tues­day af­ter­noon, up from last week’s 54. Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Health, 46 pa­tients are ward­ed in the par­al­lel health­care sys­tem, which in­cludes the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, the Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal, Ari­ma Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, and the Scar­bor­ough Re­gion­al Hos­pi­tal. With­in the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, four pa­tients are in the in­ten­sive care unit, and none are in the high-de­pen­den­cy unit.

Twelve pa­tients are al­so ward­ed with­in what the Health Min­istry calls the “Hy­brid Sys­tem.” These fa­cil­i­ties in­clude the Port of Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, which are now equipped to treat and ward COVID-19 pa­tients with­out trans­fer to the par­al­lel health­care sys­tem.

There are now 35 COVID-19-pos­i­tive pa­tients that are be­ing mon­i­tored by the Min­istry of Health in home self-iso­la­tion. In ad­di­tion, 18 pa­tients have been dis­charged from pub­lic health fa­cil­i­ties, while 372 peo­ple who were in home self-iso­la­tion have re­cov­ered from the dis­ease in the last week. There are no pa­tients in step-down fa­cil­i­ties across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In keep­ing with the trend for 2023, vac­ci­na­tions re­mained low for both new in­oc­u­la­tions and boost­er dos­es. Over the last sev­en days, 148 dos­es of a COVID-19 vac­cine were ad­min­is­tered, with 43 peo­ple re­ceiv­ing a COVID-19 boost­er. With no change since No­vem­ber 1st, 2022, there are 51.3 per cent of Trinidad and To­ba­go's pop­u­la­tion that are ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed.