 The Ministry of Health and Wellness says it continues to be guided by data on the management of COVID-19. National epidemiologist Dr. Michelle Faswa on Tuesday provided an update on St. Lucia's COVID-19 situation. Dr. Faswa indicated that a national COVID-19 analysis is conducted weekly with a view of making informed decisions. St. Lucia to date has recorded 4,871 COVID-19 cases, with 414 of these cases recorded over the last 28 days. More from Jesse Leos. The daily infection rate per 100,000 in a population over the last 14 days decreased from 11 to 10.9. This decrease according to the national epidemiologist Dr. Michelle Faswa is insignificant when compared to the period April 21st to May 4th where the daily infection rate stood at 6.9 and is a cause for concern. In terms of community transmission, if we go by the Centers for Disease Control, what we notice is that there is, we are now at a substantial transmission. In terms of the total new cases per 100,000, substantial transmission would be 50-99. So we are not moving in the current direction. We have been increasing cases and this is of concern, particularly with the new variants of concern that have been diagnosed. Our case, our average testing positivity for the last seven days is 8.8 percent, sorry. The World Health Organization recommends a positivity rate of under 5 percent for countries to determine whether they should adjust their national protocols in terms of strengthening or relaxing these protocols. And this should be at least 5 percent for 14 days. And we are currently at 8 percent, though we have gone down at least 1 percent, but it is significant and it is something that we need to pay particular attention to in terms of adhering to our protocols and our public health measures. Cases affected by the virus range in ages 11 days to 103 years with an average age of 38 years. The age range from 25 to 49 is the most affected, accounting for 53 percent of the cases. 53 percent of all cases have been females, however accounting for 71 percent of COVID-19 related deaths are males as they often have poor health seeking behavior. As it relates to the prevalence of cases as per health district, as at the 18th of May 2021, castries accounted for the highest number of cases. However, prevalence based on the population of the different regions showed that Babunoh had the highest incidence per 10,000 people, followed by Ancelare and Verne-Crossele. The Ministry of Health has also noticed increased cases in the south of the island and health officials are actively working to reduce the numbers and curb the spread. Midway through May, we are noticing that we are almost at the number that we have in April. So this is particularly concerning. We are midway through the month of May and we have almost reached April numbers. So hence a call to the public to practice social distancing, to ensure mask wearing, wash hands and at least try our best to maintain these public health measures in order to reduce the number of cases that we are seeing in country. The Ministry of Health and Wellness is urging members of the public to adhere to all COVID-19 protocols as the country continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. For the Government Information Service, I am Jesse Leance reporting.