rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt
Trinidad and Tobago now has the fourth-highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the CARICOM region, after an additional fatality was recorded by the Ministry of Health yesterday. It brought the total number of COVID-19 deaths locally up to 56, the same number of deaths as Guyana.
The recent fatality was an elderly female with co-morbidities, the ministry said in the first of its two updates yesterday.
The CARICOM country with the highest recorded number of deaths due to the virus so far is Haiti with 219, followed by Suriname with 95 and the Bahamas with 68.
At the end of the first phase of COVID-19 infections locally, T&T had eight deaths. This means that an additional 48 deaths were recorded in the second phase which began on July 20 with case 139.
The total number of active cases also rose to 2,369 after 82 new cases were recorded yesterday. However, the ministry noted that these new cases do not reflect a 24-hour increase as it included the results from samples taken as early as September 4. These cases brought the total number of people infected locally to 3,223 since the first case was reported on March 12.
There are also 2,061 patients in home isolation under the continuous monitoring of the respective County Medical Officer Health (CMOH) offices.
The 10 am update also indicated that there were 101 patients in the hospital, four at Arima, 22 in Caura and 75 at Couva. Of those warded at the Couva Hospital, four were in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and six were in the High Dependency Unit (HDU).
The total number of people to recover from the virus locally also increased to 798 after 11 people were discharged.