With fewer people opting to undergo confirmatory PCR testing, Public Health has announced it will no longer release daily figures of COVID-19 cases, as the official statistics no longer reflect the actual number of cases on island.
Although health officials have been regularly appealing to people who have been positive on a lateral flow test to confirm that result with a PCR test at a Health Services Authority testing centre, the numbers have continued to drop.
While the official testing numbers have been going down, hospitalisations have been rising, as shown in last week’s update by Public Health.
In a statement issued on Monday, Public Health said, “As COVID-19 testing has drastically decreased over the last few weeks, the daily estimate of active cases no longer provides a true representation of how COVID-19 is currently being transmitted within the community.”
Last week’s COVID update from Public Health noted that the number of new cases, confirmed by PCR tests, had declined by 21% – from 408 to 323 – compared to the week before, while the number of PCR tests in that period had decreased by 18% – from 876 to 718.
According to last week’s report, as of 23 July, the total number of confirmed COVID cases reported in Cayman since the first case in March 2020, was 28,784.
Public Health said it will continue to provide daily updates with an overall seven-day rolling average of positives and current hospitalisations, with a detailed synopsis published weekly in the Public Health ‘Spotlight’.
The latest seven-day rolling average, as of 1 Aug., was 44.
There are currently nine patients in hospital, with eight of them vaccinated with two doses.
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