News Americas, KINGSTON, Jamaica, Thurs. Aug. 20, 2021: A tourism dependent Caribbean country on Wednesday reported 22 cases of the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus.
Jamaica’s Health and Wellness Minister said further analysis is now being done to see if there is any particular significant factor related to the 22 cases identified.
The confirmation of the presence of the variant comes as Jamaica recorded 289 new COVID-19 infections and confirmed 19 deaths in the last 24 hours.
The total number of infections now nears 60 thousand while the total number of deaths stands at over thirteen hundred as less than 10 percent of the island has been vaccinated.
The news comes as the feared variant is increasing in the Caribbean, especially in the French and Dutch Caribbean islands.
Grenada is the latest country to confirm the presence of the variant. Officials there on Thursday confirmed that three of the COVID-19 cases recorded there, marking the first confirmed cases of that variant in the Spice Island.
The three were a 48-year-old male returning national and two non-nationals – a 33-year-old female and a 34-year-old male – who arrived in the island from the United States last month. One of the three people was vaccinated, the ministry said.
Trinidad and Tobago health authorities reported three cases while data tracked by Statistica show the variant is also in the Dominican Republic as well as Anguilla, Barbados, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Bonaire, French Guiana, Sint Maarten, Curacao and Aruba.
Curacao has reported 96 cases while Aruba has reported 54.
Bonaire has reported 24; French Guiana 23 and Saint Martin, 22. Martinique, Guadeloupe and Barbados have reported six cases each, while the Dominican Republic has 1 case.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there have been confirmed cases of the Delta variant of COVID-19 in 142 countries.
