A 61-year-old woman became the 84th victim in the U.S. Virgin Islands to die of complications related to the Covid-19 virus, the V.I. Dept. of Health has announced.
"After further investigating cause of death and ensuring notification of next of kin, the Virgin Islands Department of Health is saddened to confirm the territory’s eighty-fourth death related to COVID-19. The deceased is a 61-year-old female on St. Croix," D.O.H. stated via release Thursday night.
The death comes even as cases in the territory continue to recede, with total active infections at 88 territory-wide, led by St. Croix with 73 cases, St. Thomas with 11 and St. John with 4, according to D.O.H.
The vaccination rate is expected to see a marked increase when official numbers are released this weekend following the territory's stunning population decline of 18.1 percent, data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. The USVI's head count diminished from 106,405 in 2010 to 87,146 in 2020, and Governor Albert Bryan said during his weekly press briefing Monday that the territory's vaccination rate could jump to 65 percent from the current 47 percent as of Friday, though Mr. Bryan's figure was just an estimate. Health Commissioner Justa Encarnacion said the data will be provided to the public when it becomes available.
"We've actually worked on that and we have someone who works on our data from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services and Tiberius is the data system that we're using. So rather than reporting numbers, we're waiting until that data system is actually updated because that is linked to what is recorded nationally," Ms. Encarnacion said.
Tiberius, developed specifically for Operation Warp Speed — the collaborative effort led by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Defense Department — incorporates information from a multitude of sources including the U.S. Census, Vaccine Tracking System and commercial logistics companies.
The health commissioner said the vaccination rates among the 12-18 and the 18 and above age ranges are expected to see marked increases in the updated data. "That will actually increase a lot more than the 65 and older," she said.
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