NASSAU, BAHAMAS — As January marked the deadliest month of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, cases in The Bahamas began to steadily rise in the latter part of last month.
According to an analysis of COVID-19 data provided by the Ministry of Health, infections decreased 23 percent between January 3 and January 9 compared to the following week.
There were 81 new infections between January 3 and January 9.
There were 62 confirmed cases between January 10 and January 16.
However, there were 70 new cases between January 17 and 23, an increase of 12.9 percent.
In the following period — January 24 to January 30 — there were 80 new infections.
This represents an increase of 14.2 percent.
A total of 336 new COVID-19 cases were recorded in the month of January.
In December, which was expected to see a spike in infections due to relaxed measures and holiday festivities and travel, there were there 344 cases.
Month-on-month COVID cases have increased marginally by just over two percent.
January also saw 20 imported cases of the virus, according to health officials.
It remains to be seen if The Bahamas will be or has been impacted by the COVID variant surging in other jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom and the United States, where vaccination programs are being ramped up to combat the spread.
The US death toll climbed to more than 440,000, with over 95,000 confirmed deaths in January alone — an average of around 3,150 per day.
However, in recent days, notwithstanding a more contagious COVID variant impacting infections, new cases declined from around a quarter of a million per day to approximately 148,000.
Health officials have attributed the decline in part to the vaccine push across the US with more than 32.2 million doses being administered in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Yesterday, The Bahamas recorded 16 new infections, including eight on New Providence, three on Grand Bahama, two on Abaco, two on Andros and one on Eleuthera.
As of yesterday, total cases in The Bahamas stood at 8,223, of which 1,210 remain active.
The Bahamas is expected to get access to a COVID-19 vaccine through the Pan American Health Organization’s COVAX Facility within the first quarter of this year.
The government has made a down payment to secure 80,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, which is expected to vaccinate 20 percent of the population when the vaccine becomes available in-country.
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