By NAN Staff Writer

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Tues. Jan. 4, 2021: The Caribbean is seeing a new spike in COVID-19 cases as the US’ own rate of new infections increases.

This comes as Air Canada has suspended travel to both Antigua & Barbuda and Bermuda amid spikes in COVID-19 cases there and as the US is warning nationals to avoid travel to Suriname.

New cases reported and tallied by News Americas surpassed 13,000 in a 24-hour period as on January 2-3rd.

The number of new deaths reported was tallied at 30 in a 24-hour period as several islands have reported the presence of the new Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus.

The news comes as Puerto Rico reported 4,711 cases on Jan. 3rd along with 4 deaths. This moves the US Caribbean territory COVID-19 cases to 337,000 and 3,314 deaths.

The Dominican Republic reported 2,856 new cases and 2 new deaths on January 3rd alone. The DR now has a reported 425,000 COVID-19 cases and 4,251 deaths. People waited in lines to take PCR tests at a center installed at the Health Ministry in Santo Domingo.

Jamaica reported 769 new cases in 24 hours as of Jan 2nd and 1 new death. The country now has 95,946 cases and 2,477 deaths.

Suriname reported 741 new cases to reach 53,640.

Belize added 617 new cases to reach 33,457 new cases while three new deaths were reported to move its death toll to 605 since the pandemic began.  

Cuba added 556 cases to reach 967,000 on Jan. 3rd. There have been 8,324 from the virus as of Jan. 3rd.

Aruba added 549 new cases to reach 22,020 while Curacao added 411 new cases to reach 22,962.

Guyana has reported 485 new cases and one new death as of Jan 3rd to reach 40,154 cases and 1,056 deaths. It was a record high for one day Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, M.P., revealed today.

Trinidad and Tobago reported 338 new cases but a whopping 22 deaths to move its death toll to 2,936. The total number of reported cases now stands at 92,997.

The Bahamas reported 249 new cases as it reached 25,234 cases in total while Barbados added 200 new cases on Jan. 2nd to reach 29,160 cases.

The British Virgin Islands added 268 new cases as it reached 3,760 while its death toll from the virus increased by 1 to 40.

St. Lucia added 84 new cases to reach 13,816 Monday while St. Kitts & Nevis added 59 new cases to reach 3,252.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines reported 39 new cases to reach 5,991 while Grenada added 32 new cases to reach 6,338.

Tiny Montserrat added 15 new cases to reach 66.

Bermuda has 6,420 cases with 522 reported as active and 110 deaths.

Antigua & Barbuda has reported 4,283 total cases as of Dec. 30th, the latest data available. There have been 119 deaths reported and 101 active cases.