As COVID-19 cas­es con­tin­ue to rise, two sis­ters died with­in a week of each oth­er at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal.

The women have been iden­ti­fied as Geor­gette and Karen Rawl­ins.

In a post to so­cial me­dia on Wednes­day morn­ing, a rel­a­tive re­vealed the women died from COVID-re­lat­ed ill­ness­es.

“We re­gret to in­form all our friends and fam­i­ly that our two old­er sis­ters Geor­gette Rawl­ins and Karen Rawl­ins suc­cumbed to COVID re­lat­ed ill­ness­es. We thank you for all the well wish­es and con­do­lences. We ask that every­one just keep us in your prayers,” the rel­a­tive post­ed.

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts al­so ex­pressed con­do­lences on the deaths of the two sis­ters, de­scrib­ing Geor­gette as the con­sum­mate cre­ative.

“The DC­FA joins in with the Uni­ver­si­ty Com­mu­ni­ty in ex­press­ing our deep­est con­do­lences to the Rawl­ins fam­i­ly on the un­time­ly pass­ing of Geor­gette and her sis­ter Karen.”

DC­FA said Geor­gette worked with the Arts in Ac­tion team then with DC­FA as a full-time staff mem­ber be­fore mov­ing on to her sub­stan­tive post at the UWI’s Ad­mis­sions of­fice.

An­oth­er so­cial me­dia user post­ed about the women’s death on Tues­day.

She said the women died with­in a week of each oth­er. And as she ex­pressed pain over their deaths and con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, she al­so sought to warn the pub­lic about not tak­ing the virus se­ri­ous­ly. 

 “The deaths you see re­port­ed every day are re­al peo­ple. Peo­ple with fam­i­lies. They aren’t just num­bers. 

Please, for heav­en’s sake, take the pre­cau­tions se­ri­ous­ly,” the woman wrote. “This is not a joke, a scam or a game. No­body is try­ing to “fight you down”. The gov­ern­ment isn’t wicked for im­ple­ment­ing mea­sures to pro­tect you.”

Guardian Me­dia has reached out to rel­a­tives of the women and the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty, Davlin Thomas for com­ment.

This is a de­vel­op­ing sto­ry and it will be up­dat­ed as more in­for­ma­tion be­comes avail­able.

Re­porter: Shar­lene Ram­per­sad