Nine new COVID-related deaths recorded
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) / World Health Organization (WHO) Country Representative for The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Dr Eldonna Boisson said while there may be COVID-19 fatigue in the country, the omicron variant remains transmissible and is still causing an alarming increase in deaths.
Boisson was responding to questions from the media during a pop-up vaccine drive at Mother Butler Park on Meadow Street on Saturday.
She explained that while the most recent variant to impact countries has been described as relatively mild, the transmissibility of the variant has increased the number of people infected in a very short time.
“Even if there is a small percentage of people who become severely ill and die because the numbers are high, even a small percentage of deaths out of a large percentage of cases is still a lot of deaths,” Boisson said.
“That’s why we are seeing deaths still going up — because we still have a percentage of people with omicron who will die, who will become severely ill and end up in the hospital, who will have long COVID, meaning that they will be ill with different symptoms of COVID for months after their infection.”
Health officials recently confirmed nine COVID-related deaths that occurred between January 19 and February 9, three of which were previously under investigation.
The number of COVID fatalities now stands at 766, with 45 still under investigation.
There have been 58 deaths recorded in the past two months, since December 12.
Boisson charged that “omicron is not to be taken lightly”.
“In addition, because the virus is still moving around, it is very likely that we will see a new variant and if we see a new variant, we don’t know if it will be more severe, we don’t know if it will be more transmissible, but we do know that [each] virus aims to become more and more efficient at making people sick.”
She said the only protection against it is to get vaccinated and ensure all eligible people are vaccinated to limit the chance of the variant mutating.
The Bahamas has recorded 32,931 cases since the start of the pandemic and 6,530 remain active.
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