rishard.khan
@guardian.co.tt
One more person has died from COVID-19, the Ministry of Health confirmed in its daily update yesterday.
It took the virus’ fatality count up to 106.
The death, the ministry said, was a female with pre-existing medical conditions.
Technical Director of the ministry’s Epidemiology Unit, Dr Avery Hinds indicated that some 75 per cent of deaths recorded locally are male.
“The majority of those deaths have been above 60 years of age but we have had deaths in the younger age groups. We have had individuals generally displaying some sort of co-morbid or pre-morbid conditions meaning they had illnesses beforehand and would have contributed to their body not being able to respond robustly to the new infection,” he said.
The total number of people to be infected also climbed to 5,535 after 24 new infections were confirmed by the ministry. However, it noted that this did not represent a 24-hour increase as it included the results for samples taken between October 23 to 25.
Despite these new infections, the total number of active cases decreased to 1,303 after 41 people were released from the ministry’s care. Two were discharged from public health facilities while 39 were released from home self-isolation as recovered community cases.
There were 1,203 people in home self-isolation, 268 in state quarantine facilities, 62 in hospital and 38 in step-down/transitional facilities.
As the country enters into a period of fewer restrictions, Dr Hinds urged citizens to adhere to the public health guidelines to ensure they protect against infection.
“There’s nowhere that’s COVID free. The virus has not disappeared and we want to continue to encourage people to take the necessary precautions even as we have raised some of the restrictions,” he said.