The re­cent uptick in new COVID-19 in­fec­tions in this coun­try co­in­cides with the de­tec­tion of the lat­est Omi­cron sub­vari­ant, XBB.1.5, with­in our pop­u­la­tion.

Of great­est con­cern is that this up­ward move­ment in in­fec­tions, hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tions and deaths is a strong in­di­ca­tor of XBB.1.5’s dis­tinc­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics, par­tic­u­lar­ly that it is more con­ta­gious than oth­er vari­ants, and could po­ten­tial­ly dri­ve a new wave of in­fec­tions.

While cau­tion is called for, there is no need for pan­ic over the lat­est Min­istry of Health da­ta. How­ev­er, the fact that the num­bers are go­ing in the wrong di­rec­tion calls for in­creased vig­i­lance and more re­spon­si­ble be­hav­iour.

The lat­est num­bers are a re­minder that no one can live as though COVID-19 no longer ex­ists.

This week, fol­low­ing the deaths of eight el­der­ly pa­tients with mul­ti­ple co­mor­bidi­ties, the sev­en-day rolling av­er­age of new deaths stood at one and 406 peo­ple had test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus. The 47 pa­tients cur­rent­ly hos­pi­talised with COVID-19 in­clude 17 at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, with three in the in­ten­sive care unit and one in the high de­pen­den­cy unit. How­ev­er, step-down/tran­si­tion fa­cil­i­ties are cur­rent­ly emp­ty.

These fig­ures need to be re­in­forced to safe­guard against pur­vey­ors of mis­in­for­ma­tion who are re­lent­less in their ef­forts to per­pe­trate an­ti-vac­cine views and skew the facts about COVID’s pres­ence in T&T.

As the coun­try pre­pares to host the “Moth­er of all Car­ni­vals” and wel­come thou­sands of vis­i­tors, in­clud­ing re­turn­ing na­tion­als, the sta­tis­tic that should be up­per­most in all our minds is 718,230—the num­ber of ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed peo­ple in T&T. They make up ap­prox­i­mate­ly 510 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion, which is not ad­e­quate to the achieve the herd im­mu­ni­ty re­quired if we are to suc­cess­ful­ly co-ex­ist with COVID-19.

There are still many un­knowns about XBB.1.5, in­clud­ing whether cur­rent vac­cines and ther­a­pies will be as ef­fec­tive against it. Med­ical re­searchers be­lieve this Omi­cron sub lin­eage could dri­ve a new surge but it’s still un­clear whether it could send more peo­ple to hos­pi­tal with se­vere symp­toms, or cause in­creased fa­tal­i­ties.

What T&T must safe­guard against is an­oth­er surge in cas­es that could over­whelm the pub­lic health sys­tem.

So far, the Min­istry of Health has not gone the route of rein­tro­duc­ing the re­stric­tive pub­lic health mea­sures that were in place at the height of COVID-19’s spread. How­ev­er, ahead of the first full Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions since 2020, the vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme has been ramped up across the coun­try.

Al­though a lot still needs to be dis­cov­ered about XBB.1.5, vac­cines re­main the strongest line of de­fence against se­vere symp­toms, hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion and death.

T&T’s pub­lic health of­fi­cials will be keep­ing a close watch on XBB.1.5’s glob­al spread and mon­i­tor­ing the lat­est World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) ad­vi­sories. They will de­cide whether ad­di­tion­al strate­gies are need­ed to com­bat the lat­est COVID-19 vari­ant.

How­ev­er, the onus re­mains on cit­i­zens to ap­ply the lessons learned dur­ing this pan­dem­ic, in­clud­ing fre­quent wash­ing of hands, cov­er­ing your mouth when cough­ing or sneez­ing, stay­ing home if sick, avoid­ing crowd­ed in­door ar­eas and wear­ing a face mask when nec­es­sary. But the most im­por­tant pre­cau­tion as Car­ni­val 2023 shifts in­to high gear is to get vac­ci­nat­ed.

Don’t play mas with XBB.1.5.