COVID-19 Cases Climb, But No Hospitalizations Yet, Says Health Official

Director of Epidemiology, Dr Russell Manzanero says there is a notable increase in Covid-19 cases but there have been no hospitalization for such.  His remarks comes about as he listed other diseases that are on the radar of the health authorities.

Dr.Russel Manzanero, Director, Epidemiology Unit, Ministry of Health and Wellness: “We do follow different illnesses one of them is of course gastroenteritis. Whenever we look to our endemic channels as part of surveillance we do see trends for respiratory conditions, we see conditions for example Dengue and of course gastro we’re seeing an increase in those cases. We’ve been following these cases from the beginning of the year. I mean we have certain waves, certain peaks that happen throughout the year but definitely at this time we’re seeing a slight increase as well. Definitely COVID is here. COVID won’t go away. COVID is here to stay as with all respiratory and influenza viruses it is here so definitely the measures that we need to do has to be the same. Cough etiquette, hand hygiene that has to continue. As for the severity of cases with COVID we’re not seeing that severe cases, we’re not seeing hospitalized patients but yes we have ongoing transmission of COVID. We had seen an increase in cases in the past weeks so definitely there is still a measure we need to be doing. Influenza viruses or respiratory viruses tend to have their peaks yes. We usually see it at the beginning or the ending of the year. It contributes somehow with how the conditions are with climate. It’s also a factor of movement of people, the interaction we have with our networks so definitely if you see right now it’s kinda on the lower end but the mount we start going back to school and everybody starts going in you’re going to see that rise in cases again. Definitely that’s why we recommend that you get the vaccines for influenza pretty much in the last part of the year/early part of the year for that same reasons that you start seeing those increases then.”