Four more peo­ple—three el­der­ly men and one el­der­ly woman—have lost their lives to COVID-19, while an­oth­er 624 peo­ple have test­ed pos­i­tive for the dis­ease, ac­cord­ing to the lat­est up­date from the Min­istry of Health. 

In its up­date for to­day, Fri­day 18 Feb­ru­ary 2022, the Min­istry notes all four per­sons had mul­ti­ple co­mor­bidi­ties, and their deaths have pushed up the na­tion­al death toll to 3,553 lives lost. Among the co­mor­bidi­ties present in the de­ceased were di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion, a his­to­ry of strokes, HIV, be­nign pro­sta­t­ic hy­per­pla­sia (a con­di­tion in men in which the prostate gland is en­larged and not can­cer­ous), COPD, Leiomyosar­co­ma (a type of rare can­cer that grows in the smooth mus­cles), and Bell’s Pal­sy.

In ad­di­tion, the 624 new pos­i­tive cas­es, based on sam­ples tak­en be­tween Feb­ru­ary 13th and 17th, mean that there are now 20,731 ac­tive cas­es of COVID-19 in the coun­try, at this time.

The Min­istry al­so notes that over­all, some 122,717 peo­ple have had COVID-19 since pan­dem­ic track­ing be­gan in March 2020.

Cur­rent­ly, some 699,604 peo­ple in the coun­try are ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed, hav­ing com­plet­ed ei­ther a one-dose or two-dose reg­i­men for a COVID-19 vac­cine.

Some 684,736 peo­ple have re­ceived their first dose of a two-dose reg­i­men COVID-19 vac­cine, and 126,802 peo­ple have re­ceived boost­er dos­es as of to­day, Fri­day, the Min­istry’s up­date re­ports.

The Min­istry re­minds the pub­lic that:

●   A per­son is con­sid­ered to be ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed two weeks af­ter re­ceiv­ing the fi­nal rec­om­mend­ed vac­cine dose(s) of a World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) ap­proved vac­cine or vac­cine com­bi­na­tion; and

●   A “boost­er” refers to both Ad­di­tion­al Pri­ma­ry dos­es and Boost­er dos­es of the COVID-19 vac­cine.