BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (Friday 28th May 2021)- In the space of a week with the announcement of nineteen (19) active cases to date, appointments for the COVID-19 vaccine in St.Kitts-Nevis have been increasing with more than 50 % of the target herd immunity population aimed at 70% having gotten the first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The federation has recorded 64 cases (50 in St.Kitts and 14 in Nevis) in total of which 45 have recovered. Case # 46-which was the only active one at that time- was confirmed on Wednesday 19th May.
Speaking at the National Emergency Operation Center (NEOC) COVID-19 Daily Briefing on Wednesday 26th May 2021, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Hazel Laws said at the end of work day on Tuesday 25th May 2021 23, 340 doses have been administered with 17, 579 in 5,761 in Nevis.
Notably, close to the end of work day on Wednesday 19th May, there were 19, 320 vaccine doses administered (St.Kitts-14,433 and Nevis-4,887).
“As at yesterday 52 per cent of the target population have been covered with the first dose of this vaccine, and by extension, 19 per cent (5,968) of the target population is fully vaccinated,” she said at the most recent briefing.
The government noted that the largest number of doses of vaccine administered in a single day for the year, since the vaccination rollout started on 22nd February, was recorded that day (Tuesday) with 1,062 doses.
This media house understands that at the end of work day on Wednesday 26th May, there were 24,297 total doses administered (18,373 in St.Kitts and 5,924 in Nevis) with 6,561 having had the first dose.
Dr. Laws continued at the May 26th briefing: “… the federation is monitoring 19 active cases. This is the highest number of cases we’ve had at any one time since we started our response within the first quarter of 2020. We are working assiduously to contain this expanding cluster of COVID-19 cases. Please note the terminology of ‘cluster of cases’. At present this describes the current transmission pattern in our Federation.”
She said the Ministry of Health has been working throughout the day 24/7 in terms of their contact tracing.
“This extensive exercise started last week Wednesday when we identified the first case in this most recent cluster. The aim is to identify, quarantine and test all the possible contacts of the recent cases.”
Over 700 individuals were tested up to Tuesday 25th May and 200 were expected to be tested the following day.
Among the positive COVID-19 cases are seven (7) children in the age range 3 to 15 years old. Nine adults between the age group of 33 to 49 years have also been confirmed. Additionally, six of these cases hail from the same household.
The latest three additional cases were confirmed within the last 24 hours of Wednesday 26th May.
All active cases are said to be in stable condition.
Front Page Image used for illustration purposes only sourced from www.sciencemag.org published in November 2020 had the caption: ‘This man in Ohio [US] was among the tens of thousands who received Moderna’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine in a recent trial that demonstrated 94.1% efficacy.’