By Staff Writer
An elderly 87 year old man is now the 3rd person to die from COVID 19 related health complications within the last 24 hours.
His passing comes at the same time 275 new community cases were recorded in one day, making it the highest count since the first person tested positive for the virus 3 weeks ago.
The Ministry of Health (MOH) confirmation statement did not name the village of the deceased.
The man is 87 years old, the same age as the elderly woman from Savai’i, who passed away earlier from pandemic related health issues.
A man in his 60s who died at the Lalomanu District Hospital was the first. All fatalities were reportedly unvaccinated.
The running total of new community cases since the 17 March 2022 now stands at officially 2,997 as of today, Thursday 7 April 2022.
The count of carriers have been averaging about 1 thousand a week in the first two weeks, and it again looks set to be repeated for the 3rd week in a row, when the 3,000 mark is reached by tomorrow’s new rolling count.
The MOH statement did not offer any official explanation for the big jump in the last count, but the village vaccination run of Upolu started this week, encouraged more testing and will continue over the coming days.
The rolling count for Savaii is now at 118 cases, a jump of 48 new cases from 70 recorded yesterday, Wednesday 6 April 2022.
The isolation of COVID 19 carriers are family responsibilities with only 14 people official in isolation at the TTM Hospital, Moto’otua.