St. Maarten: Active coronavirus cases still hovering in the 50s

There are now 56 active cases of COVID-19 in St. Maarten, according to government’s latest update on Tuesday evening. This makes it al­most three weeks that the country’s daily active cases have been hovering be­tween fifty and seventy.

After seemingly having pawed the peak of St. I Maarten’s second wave of COVID-19 infections, the number of active cases has plateaued, with new daily cases about matching the number of persons recover­ing from the disease.

The second wave peaked in late August, with a re­cord high of 267 active cases on August 30. By mid- September, the number of active cases had gone down to roughly 60 cases before shooting up to 90 by the end of that month.

The number of active cas­es dropped below 70 again on October 7 and has been below that figure since. According to Tuesday’s figures, seven people are being treated for COV­ID-19 at St. Maarten Medi­cal Center (SMMC), of whom one is in the hospi­tal’s isolation facility. Some 49 cases are being moni­tored in home isolation by the Health Ministry’s Col­lective Prevention Services (CPS).

A total of 22 persons have succumbed to the deadly disease since the first case was recorded in March, while 714 have recovered. Excluding active cases, this amounts to a mortality rate of about three per cent. The second wave, which began in mid-July, has had many more cases in com­parison to the first wave, but has been considerably less lethal.

However, this statement should be taken with a grain of salt. Especially in the first wave, government faced testing and contact-tracing limitations, as well as challenges in convincing persons to be tested in its community outreach cam­paigns.

The Daily Herald.