The World Health Organization [WHO] has now changed Bermuda’s country status to ‘Community Transmission’, which is, in effect, the most serious ranking the WHO can give.
In yesterday’s press release, the Government said, “Bermuda’s current WHO country status is Sporadic Cases. However, Bermuda’s PAHO country status is Community Transmission,” while today’s statement from the Government said, “Bermuda’s current World Health Organization [WHO] country status is Community Transmission.”
A look at the WHO’s website does show they now list Bermuda has having ‘community transmission’, whereas they previously listed the island has having ‘sporadic cases.’
The WHO’s classification system, as per their website, is:
No cases: Countries/territories/areas with no confirmed cases (not shown in table)
Sporadic cases: Countries/territories/areas with one or more cases, imported or locally detected
Clusters of cases: Countries/territories/areas experiencing cases, clustered in time, geographic location and/or by common exposures
Community transmission: Countries/area/territories experiencing larger outbreaks of local transmission defined through an assessment of factors including, but not limited to:
- Large numbers of cases not linkable to transmission chains
- Large numbers of cases from sentinel lab surveillance
- Multiple unrelated clusters in several areas of the country/territory/area
This comes as the Ministry confirmed another 75 new positive cases today, o the island now has 537 active cases and unfortunately five people are now in hospital, with three in critical care.
Health Minister Kim Wilson has strongly urged people to, “Please stay in your bubble this Easter weekend. Now is not the time to be irresponsible, to gather in groups outside of your immediate household, or have parties.”
“All week, we have been stressing this message because if you do not follow this guidance, we are going to see higher numbers of people contracting the virus, getting sick and dying.”
“We must all do our part to stop the spread of the coronavirus,” the Minister added. “Please think of all of our safety this holiday weekend, and stay put. I wish everyone a happy and healthy Good Friday.”
