COVID-19 cases among children are on the rise in Tobago according to data presented during the Division of Health, Wellness and Family Services yesterday.
Since January some 402 cases were recorded among people under the age of 20; 296 of whom were 15 years and under. With 150 infections August saw the largest number of people under 20 contracting COVID-19; 105 of whom were under the age of 15.
While January did not see any under 20s infected, February and March each saw one child under the age of five contract the disease. Cases under 20 years of age began to climb from April which witnessed four infections in children between 0 to 15 years, 3 between 6 to 10 years, three between 11 to 15 years and 3 between 16 to 20 years.
Acting County Medical Officer of Health, Dr Tiffany Hoyte, attributed the infections to onward transmission within households in a community spread setting which was further facilitated by the heightened infectivity of the Gamma variant now believed to be circulating widely on the island.
“We have community spread ongoing and we know that with the gamma variant circulating, being way more infectious, where before we might have found that if there is a positive person in a household there might just be one or two others, we find that whenever there is a household with a positive case, most of the other members, when we test them as primary contacts, also turn out to be positive,” she said.
“So a lot of the time we know the kids would have been home but we are having cases where families are being affected so through that spread of persons who are working, or adults who are in the home who test positive and then when we screen the family, we get the kids also testing positive.”
Overall, infections in those under the age of 20 represent 16.6 per cent of all cases recorded on the island up to yesterday.
