Omicron cases rise, doctors say COVID surge ‘now inevitable’

“In the new year we would al­so ex­pect per­sons to come back to seek test­ing as be­fore so when all these fac­tors come to­geth­er, with­in the first few weeks of 2022 we will be see­ing a spike high­er than be­fore,” he said

Six more cas­es of the Omi­cron vari­ant have been de­tect­ed lo­cal­ly.

In a state­ment on Mon­day, the Min­istry of Health said three of the cas­es were for­eign na­tion­als aboard an in­ter­na­tion­al ship which has since left this coun­try’s wa­ters.

Two cas­es were na­tion­als with a re­cent trav­el his­to­ry and the last case is a lo­cal with no his­to­ry of trav­el.

These six cas­es have brought the num­ber of Omir­cron cas­es over­all in T&T to eleven.

Mean­while, with COVID-19 cas­es cur­rent­ly surg­ing at record num­bers, fears were high that the new year would be­gin on the wrong foot en­ter­ing this past hol­i­day week­end as fam­i­lies were ex­pect­ed to gath­er to cel­e­brate Christ­mas.

But with a na­tion­wide shop­ping rush and gath­er­ing ex­ceed­ing the ten per­son lim­it those con­cerns are now be­com­ing a re­al­i­ty as the Med­ical As­so­ci­a­tion’s pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer be­lieves a fur­ther spike to be in­evitable as he de­scribed the events as “tru­ly dis­heart­en­ing.”

Dr Kee­gan Bhag­gan told Guardian Me­dia this spike will be ex­ac­er­bat­ed be­cause peo­ple ap­peared to ab­stain from be­ing test­ed in the lead­up to the hol­i­day week­end to join in the mer­ri­ment.

He said this be­hav­iour is al­so ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue in­to this up­com­ing New Year’s week­end.

“In the new year we would al­so ex­pect per­sons to come back to seek test­ing as be­fore so when all these fac­tors come to­geth­er, with­in the first few weeks of 2022 we will be see­ing a spike high­er than be­fore,” he said.

Pre­ced­ing the hol­i­day, the Min­istry of Health of­fi­cials and med­ical ex­perts warned that while places are open, vig­i­lance need­ed to be main­tained.

“The in­evitable wors­en­ing that will bring in the new year will serve on­ly to push the health care work­ers past our break­ing point,” Dr Bhag­gan said.

Yes­ter­day six healthy peo­ple were among 25 COVID-19 fa­tal­i­ties record­ed which meant that 112 peo­ple lost their lives since Christ­mas Eve.

It brings the coun­try’s death toll up to 2,793.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Health’s dai­ly up­date, the most re­cent deaths were 12 el­der­ly males, five el­der­ly fe­males, five mid­dle-aged males, and three mid­dle-aged fe­males.

There were al­so 175 new cas­es de­tect­ed from sam­ples col­lect­ed be­tween De­cem­ber 23 to 26. Over­all, 90,004 peo­ple have been in­fect­ed with COVID-19 in this coun­try since March 2020.