The death toll in Suriname moved to 72, one more than the previous day. Health authorities said that out of the 265 people tested in the last 24 hours, 55 turned out to be infected. The number of active cases is now 846 out of a total of 4,089 positive cases here.

“On the other hand, 27 people have been cured of the contagious lung virus in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 3,171. There are 153 people in hospitals and 19 in intensive care units. Furthermore, there are 703 positives in isolation and 88 non-positives in quarantine," the health ministry noted.

On Tuesday, Finance Minister Armand Achaibersing said the government is investigating the expenditure of SRD$400 million under the COVID-19 fund that had been set up by the former Desi Bouterse administration.

President Chandrikapersad Santokhi said the government will provide a detailed report to Parliament on the issue on September 18.

“We will present the figures where we are now as a country and you can draw the conclusion for yourself how much money has been spent on COVID-19 control. We will also present the expenditure made from the COVID-19 fund.

“If we had handled the fund well and invested in the right equipment and resources for hospitals and intensive care units, the COVID-19 situation would have looked different now,” he said after the government came under criticism from opposition legislator Ashwin Adhin.

Meanwhile, Trinidad and Tobago, which has been experiencing a significant increase in positive cases over the past few weeks, said that the number of deaths has increased to 27 after five additional COVID-19 related deaths were recorded over the past 24 hours.

The Ministry of Health said that the number of samples which have tested positive at public and private facilities is 1,773, with 1,063 active cases.

It said that the 14 new cases are form samples taken during the period August 23 -30 and that the figure “is not representative of the positive cases over the last 24 hours only”.

In The Bahamas, the Ministry of Health is confirming 59 additional cases bringing the total number of confirmed cases to (2,276, with 1, 427 of those coming from New Providence.

The authorities are also confirming that there were two more deaths including that of a 50-year-old woman, pushing the death toll to 46.

Guyana recorded two more deaths, bringing the total to 43 since the first death was reported in mid-March.

The Ministry of Public Health said that the two latest deaths are a 72-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman who were tested on arrival at the hospital but died before their test results came back.

There are now 1,373 positive cases with 67 new cases.

Belize has recorded 43 new cases pushing the total to 1,050, while in Barbados, two more people tested positive for COVID-19 - a 36-year-old female visitor who arrived on Air Antilles from Guadeloupe en route to Jamaica, and a 53-year-old Barbadian male, whose trip originated in the United States and who arrived on Caribbean Airlines from Grenada.

The two new positives bring the total number of cases there to 176. There have been seven deaths.