■ PA­HO warns that re­cent surge in COVID-19 cas­es has over­bur­dened strug­gling sys­tems. Coun­tries must ur­gent­ly in­crease staff and train­ing and pri­or­i­tize health care work­ers for vac­ci­na­tion ■

Since the emer­gence of the Omi­cron vari­ant of the coro­n­avirus, cas­es of COVID re­in­fec­tions are be­com­ing more com­mon.

The Min­istry of Health has record­ed 9 ad­di­tion­al COVID re­lat­ed death. This brings the to­tal num­ber of deaths to 3,495. There are cur­rent­ly 430 pa­tients in the hos­pi­tal. The min­istry has al­so record­ed 756 new COVID cas­es in the last 24 hours, bring­ing the to­tal num­ber of ac­tive cas­es to 21,629.

Dr. the Hon. Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and the Hon. Lisa Mor­ris- Ju­lian vis­it­ed schools in the North East, ex­press­ing ex­cite­ment for schools open­ing while re­mind­ing stu­dents to fol­low all safe­ty pro­to­cols and guide­lines. De­tails fol­low in this press re­lease from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion:

CEO Al­bert Bourla says fi­nal sales for COVID-19 an­tivi­ral Paxlovid could be “way big­ger” than fore­casts.

Health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh to­day an­nounced that the Point Fortin Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal will be de­com­mis­sioned as a COVID-19 fa­cil­i­ty and sub­se­quent­ly re­turned to the pub­lic seek­ing pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary care.

(AP) — Can you get long COVID af­ter an in­fec­tion with omi­cron? It’s too ear­ly to know for sure, but many doc­tors be­lieve it’s pos­si­ble to have long-term ef­fects from the omi­cron vari­ant of the virus.

The Min­istry of Health has record­ed 19 ad­di­tion­al COVID re­lat­ed death. This brings the to­tal num­ber of deaths to 3,486. There are cur­rent­ly 424 pa­tients in the hos­pi­tal. The min­istry has al­so record­ed 926 new COVID cas­es in the last 24 hours, bring­ing the to­tal num­ber of ac­tive cas­es to 20,915.

There was one ad­di­tion­al COVID-19 death in To­ba­go on Mon­day ac­cord­ing to an up­date from the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion. The per­son, ac­cord­ing to the up­date, was un­vac­ci­nat­ed. It brings the to­tal deaths on the is­land to 237.

TREN­TON, N.J. (AP) — The gov­er­nors of four states an­nounced plans Mon­day to lift statewide mask re­quire­ments in schools by the end of Feb­ru­ary or March, cit­ing the rapid eas­ing of COVID-19′s omi­cron surge.

The Min­istry of Health has record­ed 7 ad­di­tion­al COVID re­lat­ed death. This brings the to­tal num­ber of deaths to 3,467. There are cur­rent­ly 468 pa­tients in the hos­pi­tal. The min­istry has al­so record­ed 573 new COVID cas­es in the last 24 hours, bring­ing the to­tal num­ber of ac­tive cas­es to 20,609.

Two more un­vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple are the lat­est COVID-19 vic­tims in To­ba­go, ac­cord­ing to the up­date for Sun­day 7th Feb­ru­ary 2022, re­leased by the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and So­cial Pro­tec­tion, in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA).