Jamaica Now has 422 Cases of COVID-19

The Ministry of Health & Wellness’ National Surveillance Unit has advised that 26 samples tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 24 hours. This has brought the total number of confirmed cases in the island to 422 as at Thursday (April 30).

Regrettably, Jamaica also recorded its 8th COVID-19-related death. The deceased is a 63 year old female from St. Catherine, who was a contact of a confirmed case.

Of the 26 new cases, there are 9 males and 17 females, with ages ranging from 8 months to 63 years. Three (3) are employees of the workplace cluster in St. Catherine; nine (9) are contacts of employees in the work place cluster in St. Catherine, six (6) are contacts of other confirmed cases and eight (8) are under investigation.

There are now 203 confirmed COVID-19 cases related to the workplace cluster in St. Catherine. Their ages range from 18 to 53 years. The cases including 153 females and 50 males, who are primarily from the parishes of St Catherine and Kingston and St. Andrew.

Jamaica now has 35 imported cases, 125 cases are contacts of a confirmed case, 9 are local transmission cases not epidemiologically-linked and 253 are under investigation (203 of those under investigation are linked to the workplace cluster). Some 259 (61%) of the confirmed cases are females and 163 (39%) are males; while the ages of all confirmed cases range from 2 months to 87 years.

Four Hundred and Sixty-one (461) samples were tested in the last 24 hours at the National Influenza Centre and the National Public Health Laboratory, bringing the total number samples tested to date, to 4,439 with 422 positives, 3,997 negatives and 20 samples pending.

There are now 427 persons in isolation and 87 in quarantine at a Government facility. Eight (8) persons have died, while 29 patients have recovered and have been released from hospital.

SOURCE: JIS