Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves announced in Parliament this week that Cabinet had taken the decision not to have the military parade as is customary on October 27, Independence Day, due to the recent upsurge of COVID-19 cases. 

“Cabinet has taken the decision not to have the parade for Independence at Victoria Park or anywhere else face-to-face because of the situation with COVID. Last year, of course, at this time, though COVID was in the air, the numbers in terms of infections and deaths, were very small and of course, we did not have the Delta variant,” he said. 

Gonsalves said however that he will still deliver his address to the nation virtually, via radio and on television. 

“I wanted to bring that to the attention of everyone. In the same way, I’m really asking the business houses and those state entities and agencies and the public servants to get out quite quickly, the buntings and other paraphernalia which visually mark our celebration of independence,” the prime minister added. 

Due to a backlog as a result of the rapid rise in cases, health authorities have now published the first COVID-19 update since October 10. 

According to the latest figures published yesterday, 121 new COVID-19 positive cases were reported from 656 samples collected on Wednesday October 6. 

The recorded figure for active cases is now 1372 and 42 persons with COVID-19 have died.