An 86-year-old woman has passed away from COVID-related causes, according to Medical Officer of Health Dr. Samuel Williams-Rodriguez, speaking on the Compass’ weekly talk show ‘The Resh Hour’.
“The medical team did all that could be done to preserve her life, but unfortunately the patient passed away yesterday [Tuesday],” Williams-Rodriguez confirmed.
An update from Public Health on Wednesday added the deceased was “fully vaccinated and suffered from severe comorbidities”.
It brings to 16 the number of COVID-related deaths in the Cayman Islands since the start of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, Cayman has reached the “peak” of the COVID-19 wave, Williams-Rodriguez revealed, saying this assessment had been reached by Public Health and interim Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Autilia Newton.
“Now the number of cases is plateauing, stabilising and going down,” he said, adding that the CT values of the patients who are testing positive is high.
“That means the viral load is less and that means that those individuals are likely to be in isolation for a shorter period of time,” he said.
He said this pointed to signs that the recent outbreak was coming under control, in spite of the continued number of positive cases in the community.
Additionally, 15 COVID-19 patients remain hospitalised in Cayman on Wednesday, according to the Public Health update. Two new in-patients were included in this number while three were discharged.
Eight new cases of COVID were reported in the Sister Islands on Wednesday; the Sister Islands has had 412 cases of COVID-19 to date.
Public Health has also released its third COVID-19 situational report for 23 – 29 January. This week’s report shows a decline in new cases compared to previous weeks.
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I’m sorry to hear about the lady who passed away. Of note is the fact that even though she was vaccinated, she had severe comorbidities which I’m sure contributed to her illness.
It is encouraging that Dr. Newton and Public Health feel the current wave has reached a peak and is starting to decline. More importantly, they are considering shorter isolation times. This is definitely the way to go. An additional step would be to remove the three day obligatory testing that all tourists are subjected to. This has been a major stumbling block for the return of tourism. The sooner this is done, the better.
We have gone through the gauntlet and come out on the other end. I’ve had 3 vaccines, as have most people on island, then I got Covid. Symptoms hit me particularly hard. Covid really liked me. I can see how people could suddenly be taken down it was pernicious. The new Merck antiviral pill just came out, it is available locally and the doctors prescribed it to me. Within 36 hours I felt healthy and within 72 the viral load on my PCR was better. I had lingering effects but I was officially clean and not contagious. This pandemic was awful but the new drugs from Merck and Pfizer mean it is over, if we let it be.
“Severe comorbidities” perhaps ought to preclude classifying this death as from COVID in an 86 year old. No lack of sensitivity to the family’s loss, but old age is also a co-factor. I recently had a horrible respiratory flu, I took 3 COVID tests because I was so sick I thought it had to be SARS CoV2 despite 3 jabs; negative all. It worthy to note it’s also apparently possible to get COVID and the flu.
Nice to hear the positive experience from the comment above on the Pfizer protease inhibitor. Since this treatment works, we may soon need not worry about mutations and waning immunities. Have to have it within 5 days of symptom onset, so don’t tarry if you test positive!