By NAN Staff Writer
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Tues. May 4, 2021: For months on end, a handful of Caribbean countries had been able to boast of having no new active cases of the dreaded COVID-19 diseases. But they no longer enjoy that status, News Americas has found.
Infact, the only Caribbean country to now hold that status is St. Eustacius, where its 20 cases are all recovered.
Anguilla, which had done exceptionally well by having no active cases after closing its border on March 20, 2020, now has 66 active cases and a total of 95 confirmed positive cases. The spike caused the country to institute a two-week pause lockdown from Thursday, April 22, 2021.
St. Kitts and Nevis, which also had been able to boast of no active cases, now has one, moving its positive cases to 45. Grenada has one active case as well but total confirmed positive cases of 160 and 1 death.
Dominica has 2 active cases now and 174 confirmed cases through it has reported no deaths.
Montserrat has reported 20 cases even though there are no active cases to date.
The region has been hit by a third wave as countries, long dependent on tourism for economic survival, have been forced to open their borders to foreign tourists. With that has come a spike in cases and US and Canadian travel warnings to nationals not to travel there.
FRENCH CARIBBEAN
The French Caribbean has been among the hardest hit.
In Guadeloupe, there are now 12,115 active cases and a total of 14,555 confirmed cases while in Martinique, there is now 11,080 active cases, that’s most of its 11,253 total confirmed cases.
In French Guiana there are 9,598 active cases but its confirmed positive cases are a lot higher at 19,697. On Monday, the death toll jumped by 3 to 104. St. Barths, a tourism destination for the wealthy and famous, now has 511 active cases as its total cases spiked to a whopping 974 while in Saint Martin, there are 334 active cases and 1,745 confirmed cases and 12 deaths.
CUBA
In Cuba, which had been lauded early on in the pandemic for containing the virus, there are now 5,694 active cases with 932 new cases added Monday, the most for any Caribbean country in a day yesterday.
The death toll Monday was also the highest in the region at 11 and the total number of deaths moved to 675, the third highest in the region. The total number of confirmed positive cases now stands at 109,625.
CARICOM REGION
In the CARICOM Community of nations, the situation is worsening.
Trinidad & Tobago, which has closed its borders for over a year, has seen a spike in cases, forcing a second lock-down at midnight last night. The country now has 2,559 active cases and a total of 11,471confirmed positive cases. The death toll there spiked by 5 Monday to 179.
Guyana, which has found itself among the oil rich nations of the world and had closed its borders for months last year, now has 1,814 active cases, pushing the total to 13,564. The death toll there jumped by 4 Monday to 303.
Suriname, the other new oil-rich South American CARICOM nation, which had also closed its border for months, now has 854 active cases and a total of 10,543.
Bermuda now has 545 active cases as it has seen its case load spiral to 2,393 while Curacao has 318 active cases, 12,213 confirmed cases and 111 deaths.
Antigua & Barbuda has 186 active cases; 1,232 confirmed positive cases and 32 deaths while Aruba has 144 active cases; 10,679 confirmed cases and 100 deaths.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which is also dealing with the volcano disaster of April 9th, has 140 active casesand 1,882 confirmed positive cases. Eleven people have died from the virus on the island so far.
St. Lucia now has 118 active cases but a total of 4,560 confirmed positive cases and 74 deaths while Belize has 112 active cases: 12,674 confirmed cases and 323 deaths.
US TERRITORIES
Puerto Rico continues to see a spike in new cases, adding 469 in a 24-hour period as its reached 167 cases. Its death toll is now at 2,315 as it increased by two Monday.
In the USVI, there are now 3,138 positive cases but only 62 are active. The territory has also reported 22 deaths.
BRITISH CARIBBEAN
The British Virgin Islands reported 22 new cases alone in a 24-hour period as its active cases jumped to 24 and its confirmed cases to 216.
However, the Turks and Caicos and Cayman Islands, also British territories, reported now new cases Monday as their active case load remains low. The TCI has 33 active cases; 2,393 confirmed cases and 17 deaths while the Cayman Islands has 15 active cases; 543 confirmed cases and 2 deaths.
All were countries where COVID-19 was once contained.
THE DR
The case load in other countries is also alarming.
In the Dominican Republic, which was among the first countries to reopen to tourists, there are now 35,722 active cases, the most in the Caribbean as the DR continues to lead the region is total cases, active cases and deaths.
There are now a whopping 267,681 confirmed positive cases to date and the death toll jumped by 6 Monday to 3,499.
JAMAICA ET AL
In Jamaica, which was also among Caribbean countries to open back to tourists early on in the pandemic, there are now 23,762 active cases, the second highest in the Caribbean region. The total number of confirmed positive cases is now at 46,039, adding 172 new cases Monday. Its death toll also jumped by 6 Monday to 790.
In the Bahamas, there are 787 active cases as the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases is now at 10,576 with 210 deaths.
In Haiti, there are a reported 727 active cases and 13,135 confirmed cases as the death toll jumped by three Monday to 257.
DUTCH CARIBBEAN
Some Dutch Caribbean countries have managed to handle the pandemic well. The Netherland Antilles has only 12 active cases; a combined 1,560 confirmed cases and 16 deaths. One new case was reported Monday.
