More children coming down with likely Delta COVID-19

With 29 new reported cases of the Coronavirus in children under age 12, an alarming game-changer has emerged in the pandemic here, health authorities said Friday as they zeroed in on the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID.

Minister of Health Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic broke the news in a press briefing with Prime Minister Mia Mottley to update the country on a new wave of COVID-19 cases.

With vaccines not yet available to children under 12, they have emerged as the most vulnerable since the Delta variant is attacking the unvaccinated much more than the vaccinated, he said.

The Health Minister’s disclosure comes as the Pfizer mRNA vaccine was rolled out on Friday to children ages 12 to 18.

“I still am going to encourage and ask Barbadians to come forward and be vaccinated because the statistics are very, very clear, especially as we tackle this variant,” Lt Col Bostic urged. “The variant is attacking for the most part persons who are unvaccinated; and that, perhaps, is the reason why we are seeing the significant increase in the number of young persons who are testing positive and who are spending time at Harrison Point.

“Those persons who are unvaccinated are the ones who are displaying the symptoms that concern us as a country.”

Also appearing in the briefing, nursing officer at the Harrison Point Isolation Centre, Glendora Seale, revealed that more and more young people are ending up there with the virus.

“As time has progressed, we have seen an increase in the number of younger patients who are below the age of 16 who are coming in with COVID-19,” she said. “A large percentage of them are symptomatic and some of them, which is a good set, end up in the intensive care setting at Harrison Point where we give support to the patients who not only have comorbidities but they have severe symptoms of COVID-19 and they need advanced medical support.”

So far, the average age of those currently in intensive care section at the isolation centre is 43, said Seale.

Lt Col Bostic said he was particularly concerned about the eight-day period of COVID-19 testing between August 18 and Thursday.

He said having conducted 6,934 tests, 167 positives were discovered among Barbadian residents.

“What has been alarming and a game-changer in a sense throughout this period, is the fact that we recorded 29 positive children under the age of 12,” he said. “We have been following the developments in the increases in case over the last four days in particular…so that we would have reported on the 27 August 16 positives out of 1,145 cases. On the 23 August, 26 positives out of 1,300 cases, 24 August, 26 positives out of 1,301 cases and 25 August, 21 positives out of 1,398.”

Stating that while he was not surprised at the increase based on those figures, he said the Government is, however, quite concerned.

He then reported that Friday’s data shows 48 new cases, 45 of whom are Barbadians. The Health Minister disclosed that an additional 27 people tested positive for the virus from the Wildey Gymnasium rapid testing site.

Lt Col Bostic told the press briefing that with the Delta variant being evident in Barbados, most of those who had been tested positive from that strain were in hotel quarantine as a result of contact tracing.

“One of the clusters that is really, really occupying our attention and our resources at this point in time, regrettably, is another church,” the Minister said. “We have a church cluster that accounts for about 13 of the positive cases today and there have been cases associated with this church over the last two or three days.

“This obviously is a worrying thing. And what we are seeing is that with the three church clusters that we have had, the situation is that churches now are being held in buildings that have not been designed for such activity with the numbers and types of things that go on, such as singing. So, from an environmental point of view, this is beginning to be a problem.”

Lt Col Bostic said the Government is watching the developments closely and has closed the church for the time being and placed those associated with the church in quarantine.

“We are hoping to nip this one early because this could be a bit of a problem for us,” he told journalists. “So this is something we have to look at going forward…the conduct of church services, where they are being held, and from an environmental standpoint, whether or not those structures are conducive to church being held within a COVID environment, the numbers and the duration of the services.” (EJ)