By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE head of the Consultant Physicians Staff Association has said it is too early to determine if COVID-19 infections are trending downward, noting several factors could be contributing to the drop in confirmed virus numbers seen over the last few days.

Her comments came as the Ministry of Health reported another 77 new COVID cases and eight virus-related deaths on Tuesday. Health officials said the deaths occurred between September 2 and September 23. The victims were all from New Providence and their ages ranged from 46 to 70.

 On Monday, there were 65 new infections recorded, while 67 cases were confirmed on Sunday.

 This means the country now has 20,984 confirmed COVID-19 cases in addition to 531 virus related deaths.

 In an interview with The Tribune yesterday, CPSA president Dr Sabriquet Pinder-Butler said it’s important for Bahamians not to let their guards down as the confirmed tally does not accurately reflect the true COVID numbers.

 She said many people with COVID-19 are still not getting tested or are either being diagnosed by way of the rapid antigen test, which is not reflected on the Ministry of Health’s COVID dashboard.

 This is also compounded by low-virus testing, with the COVID positivity rate for Monday and Tuesday’s data at some 19.8 and 18.9 percent respectively. The World Health Organisation recommends countries keep that rate below five percent.

 “I think it’s too early to determine a trend just because we’ve seen with data before that sometimes things fluctuate and that’s for different reasons,” the CPSA president.

 “I think in part it could be related to the testing capabilities because we know that we use a PCR test as it relates to the dashboard and not the antigen test and I think anecdotally, we know that we have a lot of persons utilising the antigen test so we can’t say for sure if that’s a possibility.”

 She added: “Another thing is we know that persons are still perhaps having symptoms and not getting tested are being treated at home which in a lot of instances is quite appropriate, especially if they’re having mild disease.

 “Unfortunately, we also know that persons having severe disease are oftentimes presenting to the hospital late and so we don’t know if that’s a factor if persons are succumbing to illnesses and we don’t know so those type of things, sometimes it takes a while for us to catch up with the trend…so I don’t think we could certainly say that we’re having a decrease or a decline or a flattening at this time.”

 Added to this uncertainty is the possibility of further COVID spread as a result of recent election activities.

 “We are still concerned about that and watching to see what will happen because a lot of things that we learnt from in the past is that history tends to play out in a lot of instances and so we’re still waiting to see what could potentially happen,” Dr Pinder-Butler added.

 Between September 1 to September 28, there were 2,524 cases recorded, a notable decline from the 3,219 reported during the same period in August, which was considered the worst month in terms of new COVID-19 cases.

 In addition to the declining virus numbers, COVID-19 hospitalisations have also decreased in recent weeks, from a record 195 hospitalised cases on September 8 to 146 as of September 28.

 However, there were 140 people in hospital with the virus the day before, September 27.

 Noting the overall drop in hospital numbers as a good sign, Dr Pinder-Butler said there is still much work to be done before the system experiences some relief.

 She said staff shortages and limited resources are challenges plaguing public health that still needs to be addressed.

 Further, the COVID-19 situation has also led to a backlog of critical services for non-COVID patients, something Dr Pinder-Butler described as an added stress for burnt-out workers.

 “It’s a good thing in the sense that we have less COVID cases to deal with,” the CPSA president told The Tribune. “However, because it fluctuates and also, we have non COVID patients that still have always needed to be cared for, we still have the same team of people working with all of these various scenarios so the burden itself with having to provide healthcare hasn’t necessarily been relieved because you still have to take care of sick patients.

 “We still haven’t had any additional assistance as it relates to staffing and so you’re still working with the same crew of persons who have been in this work for a very long time so bear in mind too, we’re still going to have exposures from work and from community because these persons are in the community so we still have those elements.”

 She added: “And we’re still caring for persons who don’t have COVID – some of whom we had delayed certain services for so trying to get them back in line is still healthcare management so it’s a lot on the system... and persons you would’ve been trying to delay certain services, they’re now coming in so we’re still not necessarily seeing this quote unquote ‘break.’”

 Yesterday, Dr Pinder-Butler repeated her plea for Bahamians to get vaccinated and continue to follow the current public health measures.

 “We cannot afford to let our guards down as it relates to those preventative measures and I think that’s really the key,” she said.