Rishard Khan
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Health is rais­ing warn­ing flags about the coun­try's COVID-19 out­break not­ing sev­er­al "con­cern­ing" de­vel­op­ments. It has prompt­ed warn­ings of in­creased vig­i­lance as the coun­try heads in­to the east­er week­end.

The de­vel­op­ments in­clude an in­crease in week­ly COVID-19 cas­es, a plateau in the pos­i­tiv­i­ty rate, an in­creased pres­ence of the more trans­mis­si­ble BA.2 Omi­cron vari­ant in se­quences and the con­tin­ued pres­ence of the less trans­mis­si­ble but more se­vere Delta vari­ant in the pop­u­la­tion.

The Min­istry of Health of­fi­cials said these de­vel­op­ments are be­ing mon­i­tored but Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh has urged that in­creased vig­i­lance be ex­er­cised over the up­com­ing East­er week­end to avoid a sharp in­crease in cas­es and hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions.