Positives in elderly “worrying”

Chief Medical Officer Dr John Lee said today it was worrying news that a lot of recent admissions to hospital for Covid-19 were elderly people, a demographic among the community who are at a far greater risk to succumbing to serious illness or death from the disease.

“Yesterday, we had 23 people admitted to hospital, but today that number has climbed by six,” Dr Lee advised in a broadcast. “The issue that is really worrying me is that a lot of these people were older.”

Admissions, he advised, had been spread across the Health Services Authority, at the George Town hospital and there were also six people out of the total of 29 admissions who were at Health City. One of these people was ventilated, one requiring some respiratory assistance in the form of a mask and some additional pressure support and 13 were requiring additional oxygen, Dr Lee said. A total of 86% of the admissions were unvaccinated and one of the admissions was from The Pines home for the elderly, which has seen a recent outbreak of Covid-19.

Dr Lee said he wanted to remind people of how vulnerable the elderly could be, whether they were vaccinated or not vaccinated, and not only the elderly, but also others with additional diseases which put them at greater risk.

“In particular, with these groups of people, please remember to wear your masks, to avoid hugging them, avoid embracing them, keep to your hand hygiene and, of course, keep to distancing from them,” he advised.

Dr Lee also urged people planning on visiting the elderly and vulnerable to first take a lateral flow test to ensure they were negative. He also worried that people were not sticking to the rules when it came to mask wearing.

“I’ve seen a lot of people with masks in the community and, I’m afraid to say, also at work, who will remove their mask in order to speak to be heard clearer. That is absolutely not the right thing to do. Your mask needs to be on when you’re speaking as that’s one of the at-risk times, when you’re more likely to disburse any virus. So, keep your mask over your nose and mouth, including when you are speaking and when you’re in meetings. These are all times when you’re at greater risk, when there are gatherings of people, and you may cause a transmission event,” he stated.