One in 17 people have had Covid-19 in TCI; new herd immunity goal is 85%

#TurksandCaicos, August 9, 2021 – Turks and Caicos has fallen from the Level 1 low risk for Covid-19 rating by the United States to return to Level 2, which is less desirable but certainly earned with the surge in new infections.

Health Minister E Jay Saunders led a press conference just hours after the country was alerted about 13 new cases detected in Providenciales and days following information that four cases of the Delta variant have been confirmed in the TCI.

Seventy-four per cent of the new cases are local people; last press conference tourists were leading the new case count.

At this time, full vaccination is 66.4 per cent; a correction from our previously reported 67 per cent as informed by the Minister of Health Saunders earlier this week.

The Minister on Friday night shared that 72.3 per cent of adults have received at least one jab of the Pfizer vaccine; 780 young people have been fully vaccinated, these are between 16 and 25 years old; 36 youngsters 12 to 15 are fully vaccinated.

The outgoing minister of health informed, there were three breakthrough cases among the 46 active coronavirus infections up to Friday and nine of those infected are children age zero to 19.

On Saturday, Turks and Caicos shot up to 58 active cases of the Coronavirus.  On Sunday 11 recoveries were registered and with that, the number of new active infections dipped to 47.

At this stage, just about one in 18 people in Turks and Caicos has had the Coronavirus since the pandemic hit in March 2020; a total of 2,523 cases have been logged and 18 people have died.

Additionally, there is a new benchmark for herd immunity; no longer 70 per cent or 80 per cent, but now at 85 per cent as new Covid 19 variants reduce efficacy rates of the vaccines.