Kalain Ho­sein

T&T yes­ter­day record­ed its sec­ond dead­liest day since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic be­gan, with six deaths in 24 hours. It was one short of Sep­tem­ber 11, 2020, when the coun­try record­ed sev­en deaths.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Health, the six vic­tims in­clud­ed two el­der­ly males and one mid­dle-aged male with co­mor­bidi­ties, as well as two mid­dle-aged males and one mid­dle-aged fe­male with­out sig­nif­i­cant co­mor­bidi­ties.

Since the start of April 2021, T&T be­gan to record a spike in cas­es at the start of April 2021 and by mid-month, the spike in deaths start­ed. From April 15 to the present, T&T has record­ed 39 deaths, with 16 of those oc­cur­ring in the last four days since the start of May.

The cur­rent death toll stands at 185.

In the last 24 hours, 235 cas­es were re­port­ed, mark­ing the fifth-high­est jump since the pan­dem­ic be­gan.

No­tably, the top five high­est jumps in dai­ly re­port­ed cas­es have oc­curred in the last week. These cas­es have brought the to­tal num­ber of peo­ple in­fect­ed by the dis­ease to 11,706.

Of this to­tal, ac­tive cas­es stand at a record high of 2,689.

Ac­tive cas­es in­clude COVID-19-pos­i­tive peo­ple iso­lat­ed at home, in step-down fa­cil­i­ties, or in hos­pi­tals across the coun­try.

T&T’s COVID-19 hos­pi­tals are now at a record high oc­cu­pan­cy.

With a to­tal of 264 in hos­pi­tal, T&T’s over­all COVID-19 hos­pi­tal oc­cu­pan­cy stands at 49 per cent across all lev­els of care.

Health of­fi­cials have warned that T&T’s par­al­lel health­care sys­tem may col­lapse by the end of next week based on cur­rent trends.

Based on the lat­est num­bers from the Min­istry of Health, there are 116 peo­ple hos­pi­talised at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, mark­ing a 56 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy—the third-high­est num­ber to date.

The Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal is cur­rent­ly at a 63 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy lev­el, its fourth-high­est to date.

At Ari­ma, the 20 hos­pi­talised pa­tients re­sult in a 28 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy. How­ev­er, the Au­gus­tus Long Hos­pi­tal is near ca­pac­i­ty, re­port­ing an 83 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy with 40 pa­tients ward­ed there.

Ac­cord­ing to the Health Min­istry’s num­bers, In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU) and High De­pen­den­cy Unit (HDU) pa­tients are on­ly at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal. Still, these ICU and HDU num­bers are at record high­est, at 12 and 19, re­spec­tive­ly.

This re­sults in a 67 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy at Cou­va’s ICU and a 50 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy at the hos­pi­tal’s HDU.

To­ba­go is al­so record­ing record COVID-19 num­bers.

Yes­ter­day, the is­land re­port­ed ten new cas­es, the third-high­est spike in cas­es, tied with Oc­to­ber 1, 2020.

The high­est dai­ly spike in cas­es oc­curred on Oc­to­ber 8, 2020, with 24 cas­es.

These new cas­es brought To­ba­go’s ac­tive cas­es to a record high of 53, with to­tal cas­es stand­ing at 247.

There are 25 peo­ple hos­pi­talised on the is­land, 15 in step-down fa­cil­i­ties and three pa­tients were dis­charged in the last 24 hours.