Dr. Tom Warcup, Director of the Block Island Medical Center, presented the Town Council with the latest news on the Covid front on Monday night. The good news is that 75 percent of Rhode Islanders are fully vaccinated, with 1149 Block Islanders having been fully vaccinated. Since the vaccines have become available for children, over 88 percent of Block Island kids age five and over have received the vaccine.Cases continue to rise, however, with the state of Rhode Island exhibiting a positivity rate of 4.9 percent, up from 1.7 percent in October. As for variants, the Delta variant is accounting for over half of all cases in Rhode Island, with no Omicron variant detected in the state as of Monday.
On Block Island, Warcup reports 111 cases total since March of 2020, but eight of them are new since last week, with Warcup reporting that one of the cases had just come into the office that day. The doctor stressed that vaccines are effective against the virus, leading to extremely reduced symptoms and lethality. “Vaccinations work,” Warcup said.First Warden Andre Boudreau asked if the eight new cases were breakthrough cases, meaning the patient was vaccinated prior to infection.
