Death passes new COVID-19 milestone

The death toll from the coronavirus in the first weeks of 2021 is now three times the number of lives claimed in all of last year with the announcement of the 21st death since the pandemic reached these shores.

The latest death is of 79-year-old man who died at the Harrison Point COVID-19 hospital on the very day that the Ministry of Health began to release nearly 100,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to crucial health care personnel, the Ministry of Health revealed Friday.

The pensioner was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on February 7, from where he was sent to the isolation unit at Enmore. Two days later, he was transferred to the Harrison Point Isolation Facility where he survived for only two days, the ministry said.

Health Minister Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic used the announcement to defend the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine which he noted had been endorsed by the World Health Organisation as suitable for people over age 65, as he sought to underscore the value of the COVID-19 jab as part of the arsenal in the fight against the disease.

“This is important given the fact that senior citizens constitute a large percentage of the Barbadian population.”

Some 100,000 doses of the Indian-made, British-developed vaccine, a gift from India, arrived here on Tuesday.

Lt Col Bostic said that WHO had also indicated this vaccine was proven to have a high level of efficacy. The vaccine was recommended by WHO for use “even in countries that have circulation of the (South African) variant, which has proved to be a more virulent strain of the viral illness that is easier to contract.

There is no evidence that the South African variant IS in Barbados but health authorities have confirmed the presence of the more highly contagious UK variant. It is not immediately clear whether the recent wave of deaths was caused by the UK strain.

The minister said: “While being vaccination is completely voluntary and a personal choice, health professionals and ministry officials hope that every Barbadian will take this opportunity to protect themselves and their loved ones from the more virulent forms of the illness and reduce the risk of death; this is what the vaccine offers.”

As of Friday, there were 43 new positive COVID-19 cases – 20 women and 23 men – out of the 250 tests conducted by the Best-dos Santos Public Health Laboratory on Thursday.

Five of these patients had already been at the Harrison Point Isolation Facility. Of the remaining 38 cases, 35 are Barbadians and three are non-nationals.

The number of active cases has reached 339 with the recovery of 40 people from the virus.

At Her Majesty’s Prison Dodds, where a spike in infections occurred last month, 363 people have tested positive with all but two recovered.

The total number of confirmed infections inches toward the 2,000 mark with 1,947 positive tests and 1,587 people have recovered.

The public health laboratory has so far completed 110,086 tests. (SD)