The season of spring’s theme of rebirth and renewal has seemingly struck an accord with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, as a resurgence of infections sweeps the entire Caribbean.

As seen at the start of 2022, when the Omicron variant first spread like wildfire, its BA.2 subvariant is being fingered as the root cause of the massive spike in cases across the region.

Encouragingly, with the Caribbean entering its 90th week of maintaining mostly closed cases, some territories—St Martin, Sint Maarten, Dominica, British Virgin Islands, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint-Barthélemy, Turks and Caicos Islands and Anguilla—have not recorded any new deaths since April. 

While the Omicron subvariant’s impact on coronavirus-related hospitalisations and deaths remains subdued, new infections (259,234) greatly outnumbered closed cases (74,791) over the past 50 days.

Further analysis of regional data finds all but two of the 32 affected countries and territories have reported new cases within the last 48 hours†. Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe and Trinidad and Tobago rank as the five worst-hit territories in the region. 

As at 1:59 pm Greenwich Meridian Time (GMT) on Friday, May 20, collated data from respective health departments across the region has indicated a combined total of 3,721,461 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

Of that number, some 2,471,315 cases, or roughly 66.41 per cent, have officially been declared closed. There are an estimated 1,250,146 active cases regionally.

The statistics were largely the result of patients across the Caribbean reporting a full recovery from the infectious disease (2,436,625 recoveries to date, barring insufficient data from Puerto Rico and France’s overseas territories region-wide).

In the meantime, the total number of patients who succumbed to coronavirus-related complications increased to 34,690.

See Our Today’s latest situational analysis on COVID-19 in the Caribbean below:

Cuba: 61 new cases; 1,104,891 confirmed. 8,529 patients have died. (1,095,968 recoveries)

Puerto Rico: 6,896 new cases; 620,697 confirmed. 4,285 patients have died. (*No information available on recoveries)

Dominican Republic: 90 new cases; 581,044 confirmed. 4,377 patients have died. (576,006 patients have recovered)

Guadeloupe: 2,437 new cases; 284,836 confirmed. 871 patients have died. (2,250 recoveries)

Trinidad and Tobago: 613 new cases; 156,940 confirmed. 3,886 patients have died. (143,789 recoveries)

Martinique: 4,871 new cases; 156,157 confirmed. 918 patients have died. (124 recoveries)

Jamaica: 288 new cases; 133,538 confirmed. 3,018 patients have died. (85,664 recoveries)

French Guiana: 529 new cases; 82,313 confirmed. 397 patients have died. (9,995 recoveries)

Suriname: 232 new cases; 80,240 confirmed. 1,339 patients have died. (49,466 recoveries)

Barbados: 371 new cases; 78,138 confirmed. 435 patients have died. (73,480 recoveries)

Guyana: 62 new cases; 64,082 confirmed. 1,229 patients have died. (62,400 recoveries)

Belize: 117 new cases; 58,332 confirmed. 677 patients have died. (56,861 recoveries)

Curaçao: No reported new cases; 43,017 confirmed. 275 patients have died. (42,203 recoveries)

Aruba: 504 new cases; 35,693 confirmed. 213 patients have died. (35,119 recoveries)

The Bahamas: 22 new cases; 34,011 confirmed. 801 patients have died. (32,539 recoveries)

Haiti: Four new cases; 30,734 confirmed. 835 patients have died. (29,643 recoveries)

St Lucia: 125 new cases; 24,780 confirmed. 368 patients have died. (23,578 recoveries)

Cayman Islands: 895 new cases; 24,477 confirmed. 28 patients have died. (8,553 recoveries)

US Virgin Islands: 126 new cases; 18,551 confirmed. 113 patients have died. (17,308 recoveries)

Grenada: 142 new cases; 17,061 confirmed. 223 patients have died. (15,595 recoveries)

Bermuda: 307 new cases; 14,442 confirmed. 137 patients have died. (13,945 recoveries)

Dominica: No reported new cases; 13,116 confirmed. 63 patients have died. (12,465 recoveries)

St Martin: 84 new cases; 10,602 confirmed. 63 patients have died. (1,399 recoveries)

Sint Maarten: 66 new cases; 10,189 confirmed. 86 patients have died. (10,068 recoveries)

St Vincent and the Grenadines: 16 new cases; 8,607 confirmed. 106 patients have died. (8,373 recoveries)

Antigua and Barbuda: 55 new cases; 7,910 confirmed. 138 patients have died. (7,597 recoveries)

British Virgin Islands: 394 new cases; 6,690 confirmed. 62 patients have died. (6,496 recoveries)

Turks & Caicos Islands: 51 new cases; 6,097 confirmed. 36 patients have died. (6,026 recoveries)

St Kitts and Nevis: Eight new cases; 5,654 confirmed; 43 patients have died. (5,560 recoveries)

Saint-Barthélemy: 24 new cases; 4,611 confirmed. Six patients have died. (462 recoveries)

Anguilla: 132 new cases; 3,116 confirmed. Nine patients have died. (3,042 recoveries)

Montserrat: 25 new cases; 886 confirmed. Four patients have died. (651 recoveries)

NB: There are no countries without active cases at this time