BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – Health authorities Monday said that the number of COVID-19 related deaths reached 430 after the Coroner’s Office carried out COVID-19 testing on persons who had died suddenly in the community, before being tested or accessing appropriate care.
The Ministry of Health and Wellness said that the testing had been conducted over the last six weeks and that the results revealed an additional 24 persons who had died with COVID-19.
“The total number of COVID-19 related deaths therefore, as of May 8th, 2022, now stands at 430,” it said, adding that the policy of the Coroner’s Office is to rule out COVID-19 as the likely cause of death since autopsies cannot be performed on persons who are known to have died from or with COVID-19.
“It must, however, be noted that, in all cases, the primary cause of death may not have been COVID-19 but this diagnosis was found at the time of death,” the Ministry of Health and Wellness said.
Meanwhile, there were 264 new COVID-19 cases, including 143 females, recorded on Sunday from 825 tests conducted by the Best-dos Santos Public Health Laboratory.
The authorities said that the cases also included 54 people under the age of 18 and as a result there are now 113 people in isolation facilities, while 3,852 are in home isolation.
The public health laboratory has conducted 660,727 tests since February 2020, and recorded 73,856 COVID-19 cases.
Under the National Vaccination Program for COVID-19, the total number of persons with at least one dose is 161,885 or 70.9 percent of the eligible population, while the total number of fully vaccinated persons is 152,180 or 56.2 percent of the total population.
