(Trinidad Guardian) The Ministry of Health has confirmed that the country is now recording 85 per cent more daily COVID-19 cases on average when compared to two weeks ago.
Tuesday’s COVID update announced 576 new positive cases and yesterday’s added a further 543.
According to Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh, the increase could spell trouble for the future.
“In 14 days we moved from a rolling seven-day average of 238 to 440. If we continue like this…we go back to the days of 700, 800, 900 cases per day, which is where we don’t want to go,” Deyalsingh said during yesterday’s COVID-19 media briefing.
He said the increase was expected with the recent easing of restrictions but noted they are focused more on the hospitalisation rates.
“With the presence of Omicron, it is more infectious, you will get more cases but they are less severe and that is what we are seeing. So our hospital system and the ability to provide that care is not being compromised at this point in time but we continue to watch,” he said.
This is why, he said, the population needs to understand this and work with the Government and health officials to be responsible and do their personal risk assessment.
Presenting data on the country’s outbreak, head of the Ministry’s Epidemiology Division, Dr Avery Hinds, said the increase is more visible when aggregated by weekly cases.
“From (week) 15 to 16, there’s actually a 24 per cent increase and we are currently still at the start for all intents and purposes of epi week 17,” he said.
Dr Hinds said this week is projected to witness even further increases.
“Epi week 17 is already nearly the height of the previous and if we continue at the current rate, we may end up with approximately 3,000 cases just for the week, which would be about a 31 per cent increase over the previous week,” Hinds said.
His data also indicated the positivity rate is also on the rise. At the start of April, roughly 28 per cent of tests were returning positive results. This week, that figure is at 44 per cent. The positivity rate is an indicator of the level of virus in circulation among the population.
On a monthly scale, Dr Hinds said April is set to record just about the same number of cases as March. This will break the trend of significantly fewer cases being reported monthly since December.
“The rate at which we’re dropping has diminished tremendously, which could signal, basically, what we call a turnaround. We’re changing direction,” Hinds said.
He said this is cause for additional concern and warrants additional caution by the population.
Adding to the troubling news, the more infectious Omicron sublineage, BA.2, dubbed “Stealth Omicron,” appears to be becoming the dominant strain circulating in T&T’s population.