Rishard Khan
rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt
The Ministry of Health has announced 802 new cases of COVID-19, representing the highest caseload figure since February 11 this year.
A further two people have died from the virus.
The number of cases has been rising over the last few weeks, with the Ministry of Health noting on Wednesday that T&T was on track for a return to between 700 and 900 cases per day.
While charting the course of this uptick will be difficult with the BA.2 “Stealth” Omicron subvariant, public health diplomat and epidemiologist, Dr Farley Cleghorn, has said T&T’s vaccination rate will be crucial to determining the future.
“The vaccination rate in the background is critically important and you’re vaccination rate is hovering about 51 per cent. I haven’t seen any evidence that your vaccination rate is going up,” he said.
He said while the BA.2 sublineage is less likely to cause severe illness and death, it’s still dangerous for the unvaccinated.
“Unvaccinated people, regardless if it’s BA.1 or BA.2, are still ten to 14 times more likely to experience the negative outcomes,” he said.
But with vaccine uptake dwindling to almost negligible numbers per day, Dr Cleghorn said it’s time for the Government to change its current strategy.
Instead of having sites open for people to go of their own volition, he said there needs to be increased outreach into the vulnerable population segments.
“I would try to get more of the older population and more of the chronic disease population vaccinated. That means you can’t just have open centres where people can walk in. You have to engage the healthcare delivery system so people who have chronic diseases can be given vaccines when they are encountering the healthcare system,” he said.
As the country tries to move toward living with the virus, he said it’s important the Government motivates people to keep their vigilance up.
