T&T COVID rates plateau

Anna-Lisa Paul

The recent downward trend in the number of COVID-19 cases has led medical experts to declare that T&T’s rate of infection has plateaued.

During the media briefing at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s, yesterday, Epidemiologist Dr Avery Hinds explained: “The initial downward trend we have been seeing since about August 25, has continued. We have been seeing week-on-week decreases in the number of new cases being diagnosed. What we have noted is that those decreases are slowing a little.”

Hinds said while a 35 per cent decline had been observed in the first week of the downward trend, in the second week there was a 22 per cent decrease, while last week’s figures decreased further downwards to 12 per cent.

“That decrease is slowing and we are having what we would call a plateau…meaning we are sort of maintaining an even number of cases. Right now we are hovering in the 50’s in terms of new cases reported on a daily a basis.”

He said stabilizing figures meant the country had reached an equilibrium point which could be attributed to the population adhering to the public health regulations. Urging citizens to continue observing the health protocols to sanitize, wear masks, and social distance, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said the global picture remained bleak with total cases exceeding 37 million and daily cases numbering around 350,000 per day.

He said regional statistics also indicated that Latin America and Caribbean territories were experiencing increases daily.

The total number of deaths in T&T stood at 90 yesterday, of which five persons died at home.

Deyalsingh said, “It is predicted we would have one death per day and we don’t want to have that. We would like to get our caseload down so we can avoid more deaths.”

Pointing out that some larger countries had been forced to employ stricter lock-downs to stave off the virus from spreading further, the minister assured: “We are not doing too badly but we would like to do better.”