The V.I. Department of Health reported 18 new Covid-19 cases Tuesday night, which has increased the total number of active infections to 141. Positive results have been surging in the territory and the Dept. of Health has attributed the spike in part to Thanksgiving gatherings. There were 109 test results pending.
Active caseload per island as of Tuesday night: 52 on St. Croix, 50 on St. Thomas and 39 in St. John.
Cases under investigation: 12
Community spread infections: 5
Close contact infections: 5
Travel-related: 2
Governor Albert Bryan, speaking during his administration’s Covid-19 response update Monday, discouraged gatherings and non-essential travel. He said Government House had canceled events already planned in an effort to minimize the spread of the virus.
“There is no mandate to cancel events as yet, but as Government House, we had a number of events scheduled for Christmas, including drive-thrus, we’re going to go ahead and cancel our events. We just don’t want anybody to have any reason to gather for any reason,” he said.
Mr. Bryan said the Government House drive-thru would have seen the distribution of “goodies” while people simply drove through to collect them. “We’re going to cancel all of that because we expect to see the numbers increase throughout the week and hopefully by Christmas we start to get a drop in these numbers. But for the foreseeable future, I think that things are going to be progressing in an upward way in terms of the coronavirus,” the governor said.