Kalain Ho­sein

The Min­istry of Health has reg­is­tered an­oth­er day of high fa­tal­i­ties in T&T due to the COVID-19 virus, with 18 deaths record­ed over the last 24-hour re­port­ing pe­ri­od, one of which oc­curred in To­ba­go.

The coun­try’s death toll has crossed 400, now stand­ing at 408 and 239 of these deaths were record­ed this month.

May re­mains the dead­liest month for the pan­dem­ic, eclips­ing the to­tal COVID-19 deaths record­ed for the en­tire­ty of 2020, at 127.

Yes­ter­day’s 18 deaths marked the third dead­liest day for T&T to date, mark­ing the 10th day with dou­ble-dig­it death tolls re­port­ed for a 24-hour pe­ri­od.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Health, 17 peo­ple who died had co­mor­bidi­ties, in­clud­ing five el­der­ly fe­males, one mid­dle-aged fe­male, sev­en el­der­ly males and four mid­dle-aged males. On­ly one, a mid­dle-aged fe­male, did not have sig­nif­i­cant un­der­ly­ing con­di­tions.

The coun­try al­so re­port­ed 612 new COVID-19 cas­es in 24-hour re­port­ing pe­ri­od, re­sult­ing from sam­ples tak­en from May 19 through May 24, 2021. This marked the third-high­est jump in dai­ly re­port­ed cas­es for the pan­dem­ic to date.

T&T’s to­tal COVID-19 cas­es con­tin­ue to soar above 20,000, now stand­ing at 20,879, with ac­tive cas­es at 8,444.

In the 24-hour re­port­ing pe­ri­od, 53 peo­ple were dis­charged from pub­lic health fa­cil­i­ties, with 247 peo­ple con­sid­ered re­cov­ered com­mu­ni­ty cas­es. This marked the to­tal re­cov­ered dur­ing the pre­vi­ous 24 hours at 300, mark­ing the third-high­est jump in re­cov­ered cas­es. T&T’s hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions re­duced to 443, the coun­try’s third-high­est num­ber of pa­tients in hos­pi­tal.

There are 137 pa­tients in the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, with six in the In­ten­sive Care Unit (ICU) and 35 in the High-De­pen­den­cy Uni­ty (HDU), mark­ing oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els at 63 per cent, 33 per cent and 73 per cent re­spec­tive­ly.

All oth­er COVID-19-pos­i­tive pa­tient hos­pi­tals in Trinidad, in­clud­ing the Cau­ra Hos­pi­tal, Au­gus­tus Long Hos­pi­tal, Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal, St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal and the new Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal, re­port­ed oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els on Mon­day af­ter­noon above 80 per cent.

Across Trinidad’s step-down and tran­si­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties, both the UWI Debe and UTT cam­pus­es are re­port­ing a 70 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy. At the Point Fortin Area Hos­pi­tal, there is an 88 per cent oc­cu­pan­cy. T&T’s mil­i­tary field hos­pi­tals at Jean Pierre Com­plex and the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal are re­port­ing oc­cu­pan­cy lev­els at 96 per cent and 34 per cent re­spec­tive­ly. No­tably, a step-down unit at­tached to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal was added to T&T’s COVID-19 pos­i­tive fa­cil­i­ties in the last 24 hours, with 24 pa­tients ward­ed.

In To­ba­go, with 98 ac­tive cas­es, there is a 35% hos­pi­tal oc­cu­pan­cy with 18 COVID-19 pos­i­tive pa­tients in step-down or tran­si­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties.