COVID-19 UPDATE: 60,206 vaccinated, 21 new cases, 20 recovered

More than 60,000 people have been vaccinated against COVID-19 so far, as part of the National Vaccination Programme.

On Friday, March 19, 2,001 persons were immunised, bringing the total number of vaccinations to 60,206 – 25,104 men and 35,102 women.

Additionally, the island recorded 21 new positive cases of COVID-19 – 10 men and 11 women – from among the 540 tests conducted by the Best-dos Santos Public Health Laboratory.

Twenty people recovered and were discharged from isolation.  The number of active cases is now 192.

The number of active cases being reported daily continued to decrease as a result of high discharge numbers during the month of March.  Differences in the numbers were also the result of the subtraction from the overall number of persons who were in isolation for assessment.  They were counted as discharged, but were never active positive COVID-19 cases.

An audit of the numbers was therefore done to allow the active cases reported to reflect the count that is actually in isolation on the day.  This would have entailed adjusting the discharge numbers.  Going forward, the number of active cases will be taken from the daily count in isolation.

Barbados has recorded 3,533 confirmed cases – 1,689 females and 1,844 males – and 3,302 people have recovered since March 2020.  There have been 39 deaths from COVID-19.

The public health laboratory has so far completed 136,041 tests. (BGIS)