Basseterre, St. Kitts, June 28, 2021 (SKNIS): As the Lambda variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 disease continues to spread throughout communities in St. Kitts, with Nevis spared, for the time being, the Government on the advice of health authorities has instituted a 14-day stringent action plan that includes a majority of 24-hour lockdowns and a few days of limited operations in order to curb the spread of the deadly and evasive virus. Since May 19, 2021, the country has seen 384 confirmed positive cases in just five weeks, in stark contrast to a total of just 45 positive cases in the previous 14 months, all of whom have recovered.
The Ministry of Health’s robust contact tracing continues to identify new cases of COVID-19 with one positive result reported within the last 24 hours in its COVID-19 Situation Report for Sunday 27th June, 2021.
The report states that the total number of confirmed cases, since the virus was imported into the country on March 24, 2020, now stands at 429 with 299 active cases, 127 recovered cases and three deaths. 414 of those cases were recorded in St. Kitts, while 15 were registered in Nevis. To date, there have been 20, 565 negative test results.
The country’s vaccination programme has been making steady progress and offering some hope, although more work needs to be done. As of Sunday 27th June, 2021, health authorities had administered 38, 499 total doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine representing 68.8 % of the target adult population who have had at least the first dose. 15, 778 persons have been back for their second dose amounting to 47.8 percent. In order for herd immunity to be achieved 70 percent of the total adult population, which equates to 33, 037 must be fully vaccinated.
Almost four million people around the world have succumbed to COVID-19 with the World Health Organization reporting the grim figure of 3, 899,172 deaths. 179, 686,071 cases have been confirmed globally and of that number 166, 271, 056 have recovered.
-30-
