By Chanatlé Fletcher
PRIME Minister Dr Keith Rowley is concerned about Counties Caroni and Victoria as they produce the largest numbers of Covid-19 infections.
He was speaking during a media conference at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s on Saturday.
Dr Rowley said, “Counties Caroni and Victoria are the main areas in the country where we get the largest numbers of persons who are supposed to be infected.”
He made reference to epidemiologist Dr Avery Hinds’s geographical chart, describing Tobago as “more worrisome.”
The prime minister said St George West was one of the most populous areas in the country.
Dr Rowley said both reports from Tobago and St George West were similar, as he expressed great concern about Tobago.
In regards to the infections of the island, he said, “It’s either the efficiency in identifying everybody in Tobago who is infected by Covid, so you get a good number because everybody’s been identified or the level of infection in Tobago is relatively higher than picked up on that type of scale.”
He said, “This pandemic was a pandemic of the unvaccinated, those unvaccinated are the ones most likely to suffer the worst conditions.”
Dr Rowley appealed to almost 400,000 unvaccinated people, saying, “Get vaccinated and make our national population a population that is in a position to respond better, as people get infected, they won’t require that level of hospital care, they will stay out of ICU and HDU units and the death rate will fall among persons who have been infected.”
Meanwhile Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh said the 41.5% of the population have received a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.
“However, we still have another 300 or 400,000 to go for the vaccinable population to go as at this time, we are no vaccinating persons 12 years and under.”
He stated when the second shot of a two-dose regimen of 486,691 was added to the one-shot and done of 19,554, the total amounted to 506,245 which was now 36.2% of the population.
Deyalsingh gave a summary of a week in review for vaccination numbers.
He revealed that, “This past week, in first doses, amounted to 13, 110 and which was not seen since the middle of September. However, the second doses and plus the one shot and done amounted to 26, 340.
“In total for this week between first dose, second and one-shot and done, we have done 39,450 vaccines which was decent but decent when compared to last week comparison which was a bad week.”
