Bermuda has recorded its 34th death from the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic with active cases soaring to 205, while the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has raised the island’s risk rating to high.
Health officials said the 79 new positive cases of the virus came from the latest batch of 10,128 test results.
The 205 active cases of COVID-19 represent the highest number since May 12. Three people are in hospital but none is in intensive care. The death of the unnamed person was the first since May 21.
Officials said the highly transmissible Delta strain of the virus accounts for 78 percent of active cases.
Twenty-eight people have recovered since the previous update on Friday.
The island’s seven-day average of its real-time reproduction number was said to be above one, according to an analysis by Public Health England.
“It saddens me that Bermuda has recorded another death of someone who was COVID-positive.
The pandemic is far from over, and as we now find ourselves living with COVID-19, we all must do everything we can to reduce the transmission of this virus at all levels,” said Health Minister Kim Wilson.
Wilson said 62 percent of all active cases on the island are in people not fully vaccinated – with transmission “spreading through households and workplaces and in social situations”.
Bermuda has so far recorded a total of 2,923 cases of the virus — 355 of them in August. Just over 65 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated.
The CDC increased Bermuda’s COVID-19 risk rating to “Level 3 – high” in a travel advisory on the organization’s website. The advisory said unvaccinated travelers should avoid the island.
The CDC had moved Bermuda from Level 2 to “Level 1 — low” in mid-July.
The latest CDC update added, “because of the current situation in Bermuda, all travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants”.
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