By: Spokesman Newsroom
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts (Thursday 30th June 2022) — Dr. Cameron Wilkinson, Medical Chief of Staff at the Joseph N. France General Hospital and member of the COVID-19 National Task Force, is cautioning members of the public that the pandemic is not yet over. Speaking at the Cabinet Press Conference on Wednesday 29th June 2022, he said: “While some people are walking around like COVID is over, for us in health it is not over. Not only are we seeing positive cases in the general population but also among the health care workers — right now we have a number of nurses from the main institutions and in the community centres who are out positive with COVID, and a number of doctors including a specialist who are out with COVID. If we don’t continue to act and act proactively, our healthcare system will be under threat. While I understand that there are some persons who would like to see us throw caution to the wind, we need to make sure that we’re there to protect each and every citizen because every life is important,” Dr. Wilkinson stated.
Chief Medical Officer Dr. Hazel Laws shared the numbers: 90 new laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases were added in the week of June 22–28, compared to 59 cases in the preceding week — 30 cases were added on Wednesday and 27 on Monday. “The last time we saw these numbers or these daily counts was towards the 20th of January this year when we were in the middle of wave four.” The total number of COVID-19 cases reported by the Federation to date is 6,022 cases, with 5,876 recoveries and 103 active cases being monitored. The death toll remains at 43. Dr. Laws noted the local surge is “not surprising because we’ve had over 700 mass events approved in the Federation over the last three months; the most recent was Music Festival which we just enjoyed this past weekend. Over June 16–26, 4,402 inbound travellers came to St. Kitts, 56% of whom came from the United States of America,” a country experiencing a surge in cases driven by the BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants of Omicron.