U.S. Virgin Islands Readies for a Tourist Season with COVID-19

While the U.S. is now welcoming fully vaccinated visitors from other countries, travelers to the U.S. Virgin Islands still must provide a negative COVID test or a USVI vaccination card “for the foreseeable future,” Gov. Albert Bryan said Monday.

As part of the Monday government briefing, Health Commissioner Justa Encarnacion announced COVID-19 statistics and said as of Monday afternoon there were 90 active coronavirus cases in the territory. Again, St. Croix had the most infections with 83, St. Thomas had eight and there were three cases on St. John. The infection positivity rate increased from 1.6 percent to 2.7 percent in the last week and 83 people in the territory have perished from the virus.

The Juan F. Luis Hospital had three inpatients with COVID Monday afternoon, one on a ventilator. Schneider Regional Medical Center had one patient and no one vented.

Encarnacion said the Health Department had doses of the Pfizer vaccine for children from five to 11 years of age. Around 35 children have already received a vaccination, which is one-half of the adult dose and another two weeks later.

With schools planning to resume in-person education in January, the commissioner stressed the importance of children, parents and school staff being vaccinated.

“Make the decision to vaccinate yourselves and your children in anticipation of the reopening of in-person school. As more children become vaccinated, we will see less COVID-19 cases among children and even among school faculty and staff. This will keep schools open and learning can continue without interruption,” she said.