BASSETERRE, St.Kitts Friday 1st May 2020)-The Chief Medical Officer says 60% of the fifteen (15) confirmed positive COVID-19 patients are between the ages of 21 and 40 years with the bigger number being males.
The top health official disclosed mathematical details at the National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC) COVID-19 Daily Briefing held on Thursday 30th April 2020.
To date, within nine days, six (6) individuals have recovered from the novel coronavirus in St.Kitts-Nevis while (9) others remain in isolation who have reportedly spent on average, at least 27 days between diagnosis and recovery.
“The confirmed cases comprise of 53% males and 47 % females with 60% of the cases are between the ages of 21 and 40 years. The age of the patients range from 9 months to 66 years and the mean or average age is 32 years,” Dr. Laws said.
She continued: “In terms of clinical manifestations, 87% were symptomatic or manifesting symptoms and the remainder were symptom free. The most common symptoms as I’ve said before are fever cough and sore throat. To date, six cases have recovered with an average duration of 27 days between diagnosis and recovery.”
She said so far the public health team has traced and tested, 193 contacts of cases and 3% or 5 contacts were positive.
“Testing of suspected cases of COVID-19 and contacts remain a priority for the Ministry of Health,” the CMO stated.
At the NEOC Daily Briefing held Tuesday 21st April, the first recovery was announced followed by one more recovery publicized on Friday 24th April. Then on Sunday 26th April- two more and an additional two on Wednesday 29th April.
Leading up to press deadline on Thursday 30th April, COVID-19 details for St.Kitts-Nevis were as follows:
· 293 persons tested with 15 confirmed positive, 271 confirmed negative with 7 results pending
· Zero deaths
· 56 quarantined in a government facility
· 54 quarantine at home
· 9 persons in isolation
· 688 have been released from quarantine
At 3:00 PM that day, the World Health Organization (WHO) recorded 3, 90,445 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 217,769 deaths.
A March 2020 student exchange programme that was expected to see a group of students from the French Caribbean island Guadeloupe visiting St.Kitts- Nevis this week has been postponed until further notice due to concerns over the coronavirus.
For health reasons, St.Kitts and Nevis has exited the ‘Caribbean Bubble’ due to concerns over travel entry requirements of member countries not being as strict as the Federation as well as reports of community spread.
While the government side of Parliament on Monday 28th June 2021 saw the ‘ayes’ having it for a six-month extension of the State of Emergency (SOE), such came about in the aftermath of a lengthy debate during which the opposition side rejected comments by mover of the resolution Prime Minister and Minister of National Security Dr. Timothy Harris “attacking” the St.Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) amid the COVID-19 pandemic management.
“You could imagine how tough that was on the patient, on the patient's family et cetera [etc.]. I even got calls and WhatsApp [messages] from in the UK [and] North America asking if we got our first death…”
The Opposition St.Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) yesterday (Saturday 4th April 2020) delivered care packages to the elderly and others in need as part of its newly launched project dubbed NextGenSKN Cares COVID-19 Initiative.
Travelers who might be thinking about beating entry regulations through connecting flights to ‘Caribbean Bubble’ territory should think again.
The Ministry of Health has addressed rumours going about social media that a Philippino nurse based in St.Kitts has died from a side effect of the COVID-19 vaccination.
The Police have confirmed that some shop operators have been selling liquor retail in contravention of the Emergency Powers (COVID-19) (No. 5) Regulations.
“I want to share the bigger picture. It would be nice if we can go through this pandemic with just a few cases and not experience any cluster of cases or community transmission. We can do so if we hold strain and continue doing what we have and even be more effective in doing what we have been doing until we gain access to the vaccines and start to roll out the vaccines because once [we] start vaccinating our population, the individuals who are vaccinated, they would develop some level of immunity having received the vaccine and so if we are exposed to the virus, it would not take hold; we wouldn’t get clusters, we won’t get community transmission…”