Health officials noted only a slight uptick in Covid-19 infections possibly related to recent Carnival celebrations, but epidemiologist Dr. Avery Hinds says it was not significant enough to cause any strain on the healthcare system.

Overall, cases have well been on the decline compared to the start of the year. In January alone, there were more than 19,000 new infections.

Half way into March, there have been just about 5,000 new cases.

“There was what we consider to be an unusual number of cases for one day. That was March 7 which is about a week after the official Carnival weekend and maybe a week or two of some of those additional activities (unsanctioned, underground parties),” Dr. Hinds said during Wednesday’s Covid-19 media briefing.

“While we did see that uptick, it wasn’t something that caused enough significant severe illness to burden the healthcare system. It’s not that it’s concerning that we’re missing data, again we see it, we know where it’s from but its impact had been mitigated by a few things.” he added.

Could the Covid-19 Safe Zone policy be withdrawn, given the decline in new infections?

Asked this question during today’s Covid-19 media briefing, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Roshan Parasram declined to say yes or no, only stating that it’s up to the Minister of Health and by extension Cabinet, to make any policy change decisions.