There has been a notably small increase in COVID-19 cases globally and, in some places, a plateauing of cases, Chief Medical Officer, Dr Aisha Andrewin, OBE, reported at the government’s press briefing on Monday, 28 March 2022.
She noted: “From the World Health Organisation (WHO) perspective, we are still seeing small increases in rates [of COVID cases] – an increase of 7% globally.
“In some European countries, we are seeing a plateauing of cases, with small increases in certain regions. Fortunately, so far, we have not seen an increase in deaths – deaths are still decreasing globally by 23% according the WHO latest data.”
Dr Andrewin attributed the increase in cases to the highly transmissible Omicron variant which is still dominant globally.
She also shared that the Ministry of Health is continuing its efforts to distribute the Pfizer vaccine to persons in the most vulnerable groups on Anguilla, especially those who are 65 years and older – and those with underlying risk conditions.
Over the past week, the booster dose of the Pfizer vaccine was administered to persons who are home-bound and those residing at nursing home facilities.
This week, the Ministry is focussing on providing the second vaccine dose to children who received the first dose before March 5. To that end, specific schools will be visited to ensure that the vaccine is available to those eligible children, and the full-day paediatric vaccination unit at the Welches Polyclinic will remain accessible to all eligible children. Parents are encouraged to access these services.
All eligible persons – children and adults – are encouraged to receive the available vaccines in an effort to increase vaccination coverage island-wide. The paediatric doses will expire on April 4.
Mr Foster Rogers, OBE, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, noted “as of Friday, April 1, some procedural [protocols] would be relaxed because of our epidemiology situation and how we see things trending world-wide.
“What we have seen worldwide is that although there has been an uptick in positive [COVID] cases in some places, the severity of the disease, hospitalisation and deaths have decreased – mostly because of the high levels of vaccination.”
Mr Rogers explained the Ministry’s rationale for relaxing the COVID entry protocols to Anguilla at this point in time: “We have looked at the statistics, the resources that we have in Anguilla, and the way we think we can project those resources going forward. We have looked at a couple of areas where we think we can certainly relax our protocols [safely] – mostly in terms of people coming in [to Anguilla] as certain groups pose a lesser risk to us.
“We have to ensure that, in addition to protecting our populations, we have a healthy economy. We cannot divorce the two. We have to ensure that our economy works, because we cannot have healthy populations if we do not have a healthy economy – they just go hand in hand.”
Mr Rogers noted that countries with healthy economies can sustain themselves, and are able to plan for the provision of health services to their populations.
“The capacity of the people is increased to where they can eat properly, access medication and medical services, access education to be able to make rational decisions and plan for retirement,” he said.
Covid Statistics for Anguilla as of March 28
Confirmed Cases: 2,700
Recovered: 2,676
Active: 15
Deaths: 9 (7 unvaccinated adults; 2 vaccinated adults with underlying risk factors; 6 males, 3 females)
Isolation Unit: 2 (1 vaccinated, 1 unvaccinated; ages 71 and 81)
Vaccination Statistics for Anguilla as of March 25
Fully Vaccinated: 9,637 doses (62% adult population)
535 doses (41% ages 12-17)
276 1st dose (18% ages 5-11)
