Published 24 June 2021
Basseterre
Buckie Got It, News Source
ENDING THE SECOND WAVE OF COVID-19 DEPENDS ON US, SAYS CMO DR. LAWS
Basseterre, St. Kitts, June 24, 2021 (SKNIS): St. Kitts and Nevis has added an additional 19 cases of COVID-19 as announced on Wednesday, June 23, 2021, at a briefing by the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC).
Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr. Hazel Laws, provided the update during the briefing with figures suggesting a slowing trend of the infection rate over the past eight days. The total number of confirmed cases recorded from June 16 to 18, 2021, was 79. The following five days saw a total of 78 confirmed cases from June 19 to 23, 2021.
Dr. Laws said that some individuals are expressing concern over the number of confirmed cases reported daily. She added that the data points to a common trend that must discontinue.
“Individuals are still assuming that their friends, contacts, loved ones are virus-free and so they may drop their guard, not wear their facemask, not sanitizing after interaction with such individuals and so they may not be maintaining that safe distance,” CMO Laws stated. “That’s why most or [the] majority of the recently announced cases, they are contacts of cases, who have now become positive of COVID-19.”
In addition to not strictly adhering to the face, space and hands protective measures, some of the contacts are in breach of the shelter-in-place mandate that currently exists. The mandate permits limited movement for essential purposes.
“Ladies and gentlemen, going forward, we can get out of this outbreak, if as individuals, you, and I adhere to these non-pharmaceutical measures, Dr. Laws emphasized. “Everyone is asking what are we (the National COVID-19 Task Force) going to do? We need to start looking at us, yourself, ourselves. What am I going to do to help us get out of this situation? We all have a part to play in adhering to these measures.”
The Federation currently has 301 active cases of COVID-19, 92 recoveries, seven hospitalizations and three deaths.
The Roll Up 2 Roll Out vaccination campaign continues to progress steadily. A total of 34,782 persons have received a first jab of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine while 12,285 individuals have been administered a second shot.
