— Health Minister

THERE has been a significant drop in COVID-19 cases this month thus far, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony has reported.

This was revealed during the minister’s COVID-19 update on Monday, when he noted that as it relates to the global pandemic, the country is doing much better than in January.

To this end, Dr Anthony said that there are currently 864 active cases that are spread across the 10 administrative regions with the majority of active cases, 343, in Region Four.

As of Thursday, he stated that there were 54 persons in hospitals with 39 of them at the Ocean View facility. Of those 39 persons, seven are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

“I think we’re doing much better than we were in January, but we have to keep warning people that we cannot be complacent,” Minister Anthony said.

With that, he indicated that last month some 116 persons passed as a result of COVID-19 and as of this week, some 43 deaths have been reported for February thus far. Additionally, the minister revealed that 20,293 cases were recorded in January, while 2,407 cases have been reported in February.

Dr Anthony reiterated that the spike seen in January can be attributed to the spread and circulation of the omicron variant.

“So, this is in keeping with us seeing a spike in January more than likely due to the omicron variant, which was circulating. We know with the omicron variant a lot of people would get infected because of the contagiousness of the virus,” he said.

While he noted that many persons would experience milder forms of the virus, he urged persons to still be cautious and vigilant.