Trinidad – It has been approximately one week since the twin island republic recorded its first imported case of OMICROM to date Trinidad and Tobago have recorded its fifth case of the dreaded virus.
Reports are the patient has no recent travel history or known contact with another positive Covid-19 case.
The Ministry of Health in a release on Sunday that there were two additional cases of the Omicron variant.
The fourth Omicron case recently returned to Trinidad and Tobago from the United States.
But the fifth case had no recent history of travel or known contact with another positive Covid-19 patient.
The ministry said, the fourth person recently returned to Trinidad from the United States via Puerto Rico,
The Ministry further stated that “the person provided a negative PCR test (which was taken 72 hours prior to arrival).”
Due to the test positivity for Covid-19 both patients were isolated and will remain until they meet the enhanced discharge criteria for people with Covid-19 Variants of Concern.
The ministry said, contacts of the positive Omicron Covid-19 cases have been quarantined.
The presence of the Omicron variants were confirmed via gene sequencing at the laboratory of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies (The UWI).
The World Health Organisation (WHO) indicated that to date 89 countries have confirmed cases of the Omicron variant.
The first case of the Omicron variant in T&T was detected on December 13 in a woman who had boarded a flight from New York.
Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley at Saturday’s Covid-19 media conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s said the pandemic is doing everything but receding.
The Prime Minister said, “The Delta (variant) is ravaging T&T, and it is the main component in many countries. We are, in fact, getting possibly the worst of the pandemic that we have had to experience. An undisputed fact is that we are now the subject of the onslaught from a virus that has killed almost five million people and, what is worse, we are struggling to provide health care for our population even before we become subjects to the accelerating effect of the Omicron virus.”
