Guyana’s confirmed COVID-19 cases has now gone up to 153 after one more new case was recorded on Sunday.
Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shamdeo Persaud
This is according to the Public Health Ministry’s updated COVID-19 dashboard.
It was noted that the country’s COVID-19 death toll remains at 12 after recording its latest fatality on Saturday.
Caretaker Public Health Minister Volda Lawrence had announced that 78-year-old Daymon John, who was a resident of the Palms Geriatric Home, died early Saturday morning. He is the second resident of the facility to have died from the novel coronavirus. Several persons there have since tested possible for the virus following the first death at the facility on May 1.
This has caused the administrators of the Palms Geriatric Home to place a number of staff and residents under quarantine. The Home also improved its sanitisation protocols.
It was reported recently that at least 200 residents at the Palms Geriatric Home were tested for coronavirus. That figure is about 50 per cent of the occupants at the home.
Director of Social Services, Wentworth Tanner stated that efforts were being made to have all of the residents tested in phases. Over the past weeks, six new patients, all female, have tested positive, taking the total cases at the Palms to over 10.
Meanwhile, the number of persons tested for the novel coronavirus as of Sunday has increased by 14 to now 1618, of which 1465 were returned negative.
The Ministry’s updated dashboard further revealed that there are still two patients in the dedicated COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
The number of persons who have recovered from the life-threatening disease to date has gone up to 70 – increasing by three from Saturday’s figures.
Additionally, there are currently 71 persons in institutional isolation and another 24 in institutional quarantine.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there are some 5,934,936 coronavirus cases globally with the death toll at 367,166. Meanwhile, in the region of the Americas, the total number of cases is 2,743,793 and there are 157,702 deaths recorded.
Only Friday, Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shamdeo Persaud disclosed that Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) continues to be the epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic in Guyana, accounting for a whopping 68 per cent of the country’s total cases, which at the time stood at 150.
It was shared too that Regions One (Barima-Waini) and Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) are beginning to see an increasing trend of positive cases with six and 10 per cent of positively confirmed cases respectively.
Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) also has high figures, accounting for eight per cent of cases.
The Chief Medical Officer added that males continue to account for the majority of the positive cases. In the breakdown by age group and gender, the younger males in the 25-29 age group are predominantly affected in Region One while in Region Seven, it is the 30-39 age group.
Moreover, Dr Persaud went on to express worry over the threats Guyana’s border regions are facing from the uncontrollable crisis in Brazil – a situation where thousands are infected every day.
“I wish to focus on our hinterland regions, particularly Regions One and Seven, where we are beginning to witness the emergence of more positive cases and more so to highlight the implications for our bordering communities as COVID-19 continues to spread across the provinces of neighbouring Brazil,” he opined.
One day after Moruca, Region One, had its first case, a second person tested positive. By the eight day, there were nine cases and one death. In Region Seven, six more cases were reported within the first week, three more after six days and 12 days after, another five cases.
