THE head of the Consultant Physicians Staff Association has said it is too early to determine if COVID-19 infections are trending downward, noting several factors could be contributing to the drop in confirmed virus numbers seen over the last few days.

Her comments came as the Ministry of Health reported another 77 new COVID cases and eight virus-related deaths on Tuesday. Health officials said the deaths occurred between September 2 and September 23. The victims were all from New Providence and their ages ranged from 46 to 70.

On Monday, there were 65 new infections recorded, while 67 cases were confirmed on Sunday.

This means the country now has 20,984 confirmed COVID-19 cases in addition to 531 virus related deaths.

In an interview with The Tribune yesterday, CPSA president Dr Sabriquet Pinder-Butler said it’s important for Bahamians not to let their guards down as the confirmed tally does not accurately reflect the true COVID numbers.

She said many people with COVID-19 are still not getting tested or are either being diagnosed by way of the rapid antigen test, which is not reflected on the Ministry of Health’s COVID dashboard.

This is also compounded by low-virus testing, with the COVID positivity rate for Monday and Tuesday’s data at some 19.8 and 18.9 percent respectively. The World Health Organisation recommends countries keep that rate below five percent.

“I think it’s too early to determine a trend just because we’ve seen with data before that sometimes things fluctuate and that’s for different reasons,” the CPSA president.

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