rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt
The Ministry of Health has said that two of the six people who tested positive for the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus, were fully vaccinated people.
They tested positive for variant after arrival after arriving in the country.
However, the Ministry did not say how long after coming into the country, they then tested positive and has not indicated whether, as fully vaccinated people, they were allowed to go straight home after arriving in the country.
It said, however, that they were placed in isolation “as soon as” the positive COVID-19 test result was received.
Both of them presented negative PCR tests before they arrived in T&T.
The current entry protocols allow for fully vaccinated travellers to bypass any quarantine or further testing once a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of arrival is presented.
This means the travellers in question are likely to have been among the population when they tested positive for the virus.
Health officials and experts, locally and internationally, have explained that the COVID-19 vaccines do not prevent someone from getting infected with the disease. Instead, it helps to significantly reduce the chance of getting ill, the severity of the illness and the risk of being hospitalised and dying.
Meanwhile, former Minister of Health Dr Fuad Khan does not believe there is a need to add more layers of protection to the existing border entry protocol after two fully vaccinated travellers infected with the Delta variant slipped through.
“You already have enough. Just continue going as you going. At the end of the day, you cannot protect 100 per cent. You have to face the fact that you are going to be affected sooner or later,” Dr Khan told Guardian Media yesterday.
Health officials such as Chief Medical Officer Dr Roshan Parasram previously indicated that it was impractical and unfeasible to have an entry system that was 100 per cent effective at preventing the variant from entering. He noted the existing protocol, along with the public health measures, was sufficient to protect the population in the rare instance that a fully vaccinated person enters the country with the variant.
6 more COVID-19 deaths
Meanwhile, six more people have died from the COVID-19 within the last 24 hours and and 189 more people have been infected.
According to the Ministry of Health’s daily update, the fatalities were one elderly male, two elderly females, two middle-aged females and one middle-aged female with comorbidities. COVID-19 deaths now stand at 1,342.
The additional cases were from samples collected between September 3 and 6.
At 3,691, active cases are now at the lowest they’ve been since May 7 (3,480). This is largely due to the release of 263 people from under the ministry’s care; 234 were released from home self-isolation as recovered community cases while 29 were discharged from public health facilities.
The total number of people to receive a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine stood at 528,017 of these 417,358 completed their vaccination regime.