By KHRISNA RUSSELL
Tribune Chief Reporter
krussell@tribunemedia.net
MORE THAN 1,100 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in the country this month alone, representing a tremendous spike when compared with the previous month.
As of April 28, the most recent data up to press time by the Ministry of Health showed that there were 1,133 cases in April.
The number also reflects the 86 new cases added to the overall count when official revealed on April 24 that due to continuous data cleansing of the COVID-19 database and collaboration with reporting laboratories additional cases were added to the total.
The confirmed COVID-19 cases not previously reported for New Providence (32) were orginally tested between January and mid-April, 2021, and the confirmed cases for Grand Bahama (54) were orginally tested between September-December, 2020.
The previous month, March, saw 440, new cases.
Currently, the overall number of cases in the country is 10,389 with 53 in hospital. Three of these cases are in the Intensive Care Unit.
The death toll stands at 198, the latest casualty a man from Bimini. He died on April 25.
A local infectious diseases expert earlier this week again urged Bahamians to not let their guards down and become relaxed with current health protocols, insisting that the country’s fight with the novel coronavirus is far from over.
Director of the National HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease Programme at the Ministry of Health, Dr Nikkiah Forbes’ comments came after organisers of an event held over the weekend were cited nearly $100,000 for breaching COVID-19 orders.
Several videos of the event were widely circulated on social media, showing hundreds of people closely huddled together, with many seen not wearing masks while partying.
“We continue to see an increase in hospitalisations and we are challenged because of staff shortages because we have had a number of persons that have retired from the healthcare field and so that has caused some strain as it relates to staffing,” Dr Forbes told The Tribune recently.
“We are not at full bed capacity, but we don’t want to get there and…to prevent COVID from spreading, we do need the public health measures to be followed and we all have to follow the public health measures and if there are gatherings, they can become super spreader events and they themselves can worsen the outbreak.
“So, in order to beat COVID, we all have to follow the public health measures, we need a robust vaccination programme that vaccinates many people as soon as possible and we need a robust strong public response to identify cases, put them in isolation to stop the spread, do contact tracing and put the contacts in quarantine and do follow up testing.”
Chief Superintendent Zhivago Dames, officer-in-charge of the COVID Enforcement Unit, said large social gatherings continue to be a cause of concern for officials.
Comments
ThisIsOurs 3 years ago
How long will it take people to get it that what we are seeing today is the fallout from what happened BEFORE the Easter holiday. Jan had 300+ cases, Feb had 300+ cases. In March the hospitalizations restarted and people started dying. Cases doubled to 600. Easter was APRIL 2nd. If you don't examine for yourself they will continue with the propaganda. Nothing changed in our behaviour between January and March. You know what changed? DAguilar told us. HE said we have doubled our visitor count every month from January.
John 3 years ago
The focus moved from enforcing the Emergency Orders to promoting the vaccines. The emergency protocols brought the country through the first two waves and whilst the vaccines may have been another tool in the fight, the competent authority seem to want to throw away everything else for the vaccine. In fact Minnis seem to want throw everyone else away who didn’t want to take those vaccines.
GodSpeed 3 years ago
Funny how cases spiked in all these nations right after they started giving out vaccines.
ohdrap4 3 years ago
even funnier that it coincided with the start of door to door political campaigning.
ThisIsOurs 3 years ago
it's a COVID variant. That was clear from March. But they refused to acknowledge it until the CDC called Renward wells out on his there's no COVID variant in the Bahanas statement. One week after Wells made his statement the CDC releases 2 sentences, ~don't go to the Bahamas. Risk of being infected with COVID variant. Then Dal Reghis pops up and says oh btw, we have some test results that might indicate a COVID variant.
The deaths and hospitalizations are the indicator. It was not just a case of more people infected. And unless they produce a test result to say there's now a new "Bahamas" strain of the virus, some tourist brought the variant here on a boat or a plane
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
Meanwhile in countries with intelligent citizens where the majority are getting vaccinated all the covid related numbers are dwindling and life is returning to normal. Funny huh?
ThisIsOurs 3 years ago
if we were looking at the data and searching for a cause, the story should read What happened in March?. The catalyst happened then. By April it was too late, the exponential community spread was well underway
Dr Sands made the most important decision of this entire pandemic. When he saw the first case, he asked for the borders to be closed (i did not agree with preventing bahamians returning, but be that as it may), as a doctor he understood that the very first case was the most important to act on. Dr Minnis does the reverse, when cases are low he talks about opening junkanoo shacks and mass campaigning. Then when things PREDICTABLY get completely out control, he starts telling us we need to behave. I don't know if that means he's non scientific and not a doctor. cases spiked exponentially 3weeks after DR Minnis took over as health minister
tribanon 3 years ago
Our borders should have long ago been closed to all travellers from Communist China (as the 'source' country of COVID-19 that outrightly lies about its own number of cases and deaths), from India (as the 'hottest' COVID-19 country on the planet at the moment) and from other 'hot' COVID-19 countries around the world as identified by the CDC.
And because 85%+ of our tourist market is the US and Canada, we should leave our borders open to air arrival tourists, but not cruise ship passengers, from these two countries in an effort to carefully balance the dreadful health consequences of the pandemic for our people against the devastating economic consequences it is having on our economy and, by extension, the lives of our people.
The gross incompetence of Minnis and D'Aguilar has all along been nothing short of pitifully staggering to say the least.
carltonr61 3 years ago
Why is the Covid accompanied by deep and permanent Constitutional changes to belittle us. True leadership does not take orders from foreign entities or power as if an agent.
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
What an incredibly incorrect statement. Sheesh. Get off facebook. Its making you look dumb. Like bad dumb. Like trumpie dumb..
tribanon 3 years ago
You've clearly still got that head of yours up your ....... lol
themessenger 3 years ago
Y’all dizzy people still don’t get it! You change your minds more often than most people change underwear, when Minnis first implemented the lockdowns alla yinna was screaming and hollering. Now, in retrospect, y’all think that was the best thing since sliced bread. And of course the cause of the huge spike in Covid cases is the influx of mostly vaccinated tourists, lets blame da white furriners dem as always. Send money but stay ya ass home! Of course the spike in cases couldn’t possibly have anything to do with our ignorant non vaccinated, non mask wearing and unhygienic people all crease up at Fish Fry, Potters Cay, the beaches and the many illegal private gatherings and parties. Bahamians never have and never will accept any responsibility for their own irresponsible behavior and bad habits. SSDD!!!
ThisIsOurs 3 years ago
you must be talking to a different set of people. I know I said closing the border was the thing to do BUT I did not agree with preventing bahamians from returning. My position hasn't changed from then to now. As to tourists bringing the COVID variant... When you in a crisis, check the usual suspects first. People was at potters cay and arawak cay in oct nov dec jan and feb and cases were going DOWN. Something different started happening in March. The evidence today suggests that something different was a covid variant noone had immunity to
BMW 3 years ago
you speak the truth messenger, Bahamians will never accept responsibility for their behavior, its always "someone", "somebody" elses fault.
DDK 3 years ago
Gotta keep those virus numbers up. More vaccine sales. KaChing! KaChing!
tribanon 3 years ago
Yup, that too. Not just population control of the worst possible kind.
proudloudandfnm 3 years ago
We need an actual vaccine passport. One that can't be easily faked. These cards they give out now are way too easy to fake...
tribanon 3 years ago
I can see you're still begging for your mark of the beast. Would you prefer to get your vaccine passport number tatooed on your forearm or implanted in you by way of a micro-chip with wi fi capability? lol
tribanon 3 years ago
Oops! "tattooed"
John 3 years ago
They were saying if an unvaccinated person comes in contact with a vaccinated person for a period of time, then the unvaccinated person will test positive for Covid-19 for a period of time. Then after a few days he will test negative.
themessenger 3 years ago
They also say that if an unprotected comes into contact with another unprotected for a period of time one of them usually gets a positive result, then after a few months will have a negative result of another unwanted and uncared for statistic adding to the negative gene pool we’re currently blessed with.
BMW 3 years ago
I gotta laugh at all the conspiracy theories! Talking about micro chips.
carltonr61 3 years ago
This time of year when I was young the old folks talked of this thing they called catching the check. Their helth seemed to be always challenged not by the winter's cold but a damp cold then hot. I recall them wearing their head scarfs, up to four undershirts and long socks. They avoided damp surfaces and were just fearful of this time of year draft. Another would pop up in October. The worst should come when the old folks kept alcohol on hand because the rains joined in but they always wiped our heads with alcohol and ensured our clothing was always dry. Coincidentally it's now called Covid season and you are registered as a case.
themessenger 3 years ago
Another product of the negative gene pool. I rest my case!
SP 3 years ago
So they opened the borders, economy, and schools and the infection numbers went up.
Now they're acting surprised!
carltonr61 3 years ago
No cases went up with vaccination roll-out. India says it ran out of AZ but we wonder. Seems Vaxers spreading something strange beside herd stupidity.
Sign in to comment
Or login with:
OpenID