IWITNESS NEWS
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, on Saturday, recorded its fourth COVID-19 death, the second in three days.
Dead is an 88-year-old male, a hypertensive patient was admitted to hospital on Jan. 28.
The man died at 8:45 a.m. Saturday from sepsis secondary to COVID-19 pneumonia, the National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO).
Meanwhile, the country, also on Saturday, confirmed 67 new COVID-19 cases from samples collected between Jan. 26 and Feb. 5.
The majority of these samples were collected on Jan. 26 and 28 , NEMO said, adding that one case was imported from the United States and was detected on screening between day 7 and 10. Three cases were detected during exit screening. The remainder of the cases were detected during contact tracing and testing of persons with flu symptoms.
There are now 1,119 local cases of COVID-19 out of the total of 1,269 cases reported in since March 2020.
Eight more persons have been cleared, bringing the number of total recoveries to 409 and 856 cases remain active.
The Ministry of Health, on Friday, confirmed that there is community spread of COVID-19 in SVG and announced a number of measures to curb that spread.
NEMO said that all positive cases will remain isolated until cleared.
“All close contacts of positive cases currently in quarantine, should contact the flu clinic in their district to arrange testing for clearance,” NEMO said.
NEMO further noted that the use of masks in public or private spaces to which the public has access is now mandatory under the Public Health Act 2020.
Public transportation vehicles may only transport one half of the persons the vehicle is licensed to carry.
This one half includes the driver and the conductor.
“These measures are aimed at reducing the potential for any increase in the incidence of COVID-19 in St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” NEMO said.