HAMILTON, Bermuda — Health Minister Kim Wilson has said Bermuda is at a critical stage in its fight to curb the rapid spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) as the island recorded the 38th death and the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital moving to its highest alert level.
Health Minister Kim Wilson (File Photo)The island recorded a further 191 infections from 3,543 tests carried out on Tuesday – a positivity rate of 5.4 per cent and another record daily high — as active cases reached 1,238.
Fifty-one people are in hospital, 13 of them in intensive care.
Booster shots are to be made available for certain groups, a health committee has recommended.
“Our situation is critical,” Wilson said, adding “this outbreak continues to spread fast. It is everywhere in our community and, at the risk of causing panic, it is only a matter of time before the situation is unmanageable.
“The hospital, public and private labs, contact tracers, testers, indeed, our entire healthcare sector, are all under tremendous pressure. They are doing a fabulous job and I cannot commend them enough. But we must all do our part to help ease this pressure,” Wilson said.
Bus drivers halted service after taking industrial action on Friday over COVID-19 fears.
A Transport Ministry spokeswoman said the staff had “raised concerns regarding health and safety in the workplace”.
President and chief executive officer of the Bermuda Hospitals Board, Dr Michael Richmond, said the upgrade to disaster level 4 reflected “the high number of COVID-19 patients in hospital and in the ICU, the pressure on staff, and the impact of the pandemic on our staffing levels”.
Dr. Richmond added that non-emergency services had been cancelled and admitted that staffing levels were “taxed”.
“At this time we have more admitted and sicker patients with COVID-19 in hospital than we have experienced at any time during the whole pandemic. We are redeploying all available staff to acute, critical care and emergency services.”
A Health Department spokeswoman said the Bermuda Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices made the recommendation to give the green light to booster shots following a meeting on Friday.
“This is great news. The recommended target groups for booster vaccines are persons who have immunosuppressing conditions and chronic health diseases, healthcare workers, essential workers and persons older than 50,” Wilson said, adding the Ministry of Health is currently working out the delivery details.
So far 66 per cent of the island have been fully vaccinated but few residents have been coming forward recently to get their first jab.
Health officials have also approved rapid do-it-yourself coronavirus antigen tests.
The Health Ministry spokeswoman said the tests could now be imported for personal use after a review.
“It is important to note that there are many fake antigen tests on the market, so the Department of Health will maintain, in collaboration with HM Customs, an oversight role to check and protect importers from fake goods,” she added.
Bermuda, with a population of 64,000, has so far recorded a total of 4,218 COVID-19 cases.
