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Coronavirus Published On August 23, 2020 Staff Consortium | August 23, 2020

A 6th person has died from the novel coronavirus in St. Thomas, bringing the territory’s total to 11. The latest death was revealed in the V.I. Department of Health’s Saturday Covid-19 report, however D.O.H. did not provide age or any other information about the deceased.

There have been multiple Covid-19 hospitalizations in St. Thomas, including 11 residents of the Queen Louise Home for the Aged after an outbreak affected the assisted living facility. The Dept. of Human Services said on Wednesday that 10 of the 11 were in “relatively good health” while  one was being “closely watched.”

The U.S. Virgin Islands continues to struggle with an outbreak that has affected both islands separately, beginning early July in St. Croix, where the outbreak affected mostly Limetree Bay employees both local and foreign, and later in the month on St. Thomas, which started to see steady increases later in July and a full outbreak early August. 

Between Friday and Saturday, D.O.H. reported 48 new cases of the deadly disease, 28 Friday and 20 Saturday. During that time, St. Thomas experienced 22 community spread infections, the hard-to-track means of contracting the disease. The island saw 30 confirmed cases during the two-day period as well. Close contact cases, which included infections that D.O.H. had listed as under investigation prior to Friday, totaled 23. 

On St. Croix, which had a total of 15 of the 48 cases reported between Friday and Saturday, saw 7 community spread cases and 9 close contact. 

St. John accounted for only 3 cases between Friday  and Saturday. 

D.O.H. said it was tracking 282 active infections as of Saturday, and listed 687 as recovered — up from 655 for a total of 32 recoveries from Friday to Saturday and 103 recoveries from Tuesday. 

While providing a tropical storm update along with VITEMA Director Darryl Jaschen Friday afternoon, Governor Albert Bryan said he was not seeing the results he wanted relative to the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases. He urged residents to adhere to protocols.

Mr. Bryan, after deciding not to implement stricter Covid-19 protocols even as cases were steadily increasing — telling the Consortium early August that he was utilizing a new strategy that would seek to manage infections instead of shutting down the territory — announced last week Thursday an executive order reverting the territory to a Stay-at-Home phase of reopening. By then, cases were  surging in St. Thomas, and St. Croix continued a steady stream of infections.

As of Saturday, D.O.H. was tracking 60 active cases on St. Croix, 9 on St. John and 213 in St. Thomas.