by Linda Straker
- Returning to normalcy linked directly to vaccination status
- Covid-19 cases continue to remain below 1%
- 29.5% of targeted population (35.9%) already vaccinated
While expressing his delight that Grenada’s Covid-19 cases continue to remain below 1% of all tests conducted for the past 3 weeks, Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Shawn Charles was not happy with the slowdown in vaccination.
“As it stands right now, we are in a positive place and we can only hope it will remain like this all the way to Christmas and beyond,” Dr Charles said in his opening statement during the weekly post-cabinet briefing on Tuesday, 16 November 2021.
“Yesterday we had 2 cases, and what we found is that these cases are sporadic and not necessarily associated with any cluster. This is what we expect to occur,” he said. According to the 15 November Ministry of Health dashboard, a total of 302 tests were conducted and only 2 were positive.
Currently, there are 63 active cases of Covid-19 and one person is hospitalised. Cumulative confirmed cases stand at 5,865. None of the active cases are imported.
Dr Charles said that he knows that people are all eager to reach the stage of some form of semblance of normality but Covid-19 continues to rage across the world. Returning to normality is linked directly to the vaccination status of citizens. “Nowadays you can hardly travel anywhere without being fully vaccinated or you can be seriously inconvenienced if you are not vaccinated.” Dr Charles called on people who are eligible to be vaccinated not to hesitate to get the shot.
As of 15 November 2021, Charles who is also the chief epidemiologist at the Ministry of Health said that 29.5% of the general population was vaccinated, but of the targeted population to be vaccinated the number is 35.9%. The number of fully vaccinated is 33,366 while partially vaccinated is 6,185.
“We have just about one-third of the population who are vaccinated so far, so we are making, we have made some strides and we continue to work,” he said.
