This coun­try’s nurs­ing com­ple­ment has re­ceived a much-need­ed boost as 30 In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU) spe­cial­ists from Cu­ba have ar­rived in the coun­try to help bol­ster the over­whelmed labour force.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh yes­ter­day said some of the new ar­rivals will be de­ployed to To­ba­go in the com­ing days.

Dur­ing the Min­istry of Health’s week­ly up­date, he called for the mo­men­tum of T&T’s vac­cine dri­ve to pick up as he said, “Au­gust has to be a very big vac­ci­na­tion month in both is­lands."

En­dors­ing the ap­peal by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for more peo­ple to come for­ward and get vac­ci­nat­ed, Deyals­ingh ex­tend­ed his call to all po­lit­i­cal par­ties and re­li­gious bod­ies to get their fol­low­ing to ac­cept the jab.

Of the num­bers so far that have re­ceived their two dos­es, he said, “194,710 per­sons have a 99 per cent chance of not dy­ing from COVID.”

Pleased that they had man­aged to ex­ceed their ini­tial tar­get to ful­ly vac­ci­nate 188,900 peo­ple by Ju­ly 31, the min­is­ter said be­tween Ju­ly 21 to 23, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15,000 dos­es were ad­min­is­tered dai­ly but this lat­er de­creased to be­tween 7,000 and 8,000 dos­es be­ing ad­min­is­tered dai­ly.