A new Covid death, but positive rates easing

The Ministry of Health and Wellness reported this week that an 86-year-old had passed away from Covid-related causes on Wednesday 2 February, bringing the Covid death toll to 16. The individual was fully vaccinated and suffered from severe comorbidities.

On the 31 January Public Health saw 132 new positive cases (although this figure is subject to change when more data becomes available), and 15 people were in hospital with Covid as of Wednesday 2 February. Two new patients were included in this figure and three had been discharged, officials said. As of the same date, eight new cases were reported on the Sister islands, which brought the number of cases the Sister Islands has had to date to 412.

Looking back over the data from the week of 23 to 29 January, there were a total of 35 inpatients and no new deaths during that week. The majority of inpatients continued to be among unvaccinated individuals. In a positive move, 48 children, who are either immunocompromised or live in a household with an in immunocompromised person, received their first vaccine on Saturday 22 January and work is in progress to finalise plans to increase local coverage of booster vaccination, they said.

As far as the local trends are concerned, officials said the number of new cases has started to reduce, especially when compared to the two previous weeks.

For the week 23 to 29 January, Cayman had 15,934 reported cases, 4,553 of which were the Omicron variant. Health officials had conducted 7,930 PCR tests and there had been 2,146 new positive cases reported, an average of 307 per day. As of that week, there had been 35 inpatients due to Covid-related illness, with 48% of admissions having been vaccinated. There had been 21 new admissions, six were on supplemental oxygen and one was being ventilated, while four were in intensive care.