18 new COVID-19 cases, 1 in ICU

Another 18 persons have tested positive for the novel coronavirus from some 237 tests conducted over a 24-hour period.
Based on the Ministry of Health’s updated COVID-19 Dashboard for Sunday, the total number of confirmed cases in Guyana is now 70,457. However, only 463 of these are currently active cases. They include one patient in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the remaining persons in isolation; that is, 449 in home isolation and the other 13 in institutional isolation. In addition, there are three persons in institutional quarantine.
The country’s COVID-19 death toll remains at 1,275, with the latest fatality recorded since last Monday, August 8, when a 52-year-old male from Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) died.
To date, some 68,719 persons have recovered from the life-threatening virus – 25 more recoveries than the figure reported the previous day.
Meanwhile, a total 682,142 tests have been conducted countrywide since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus here, and of this, some 32,265 males and 38,192 females were found to be positive.
Of the 18 new cases recorded on Sunday, two are from Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), 11 are from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), and the remaining five cases are from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica).
There were no new cases recorded in the other seven regions across the country within the reporting 24-hour period.
After a prolonged period of declining cases, the Guyana Government had, back in March, removed most restrictions, as the country moves to recover from the pandemic and return to normalcy. But in recent weeks, there has been a spike in COVID cases here, which health authorities have attributed to subvariants of the Omicron strain, such as the BA.2 and more recently the BA.5. To this end, health authorities are urging persons to get vaccinated, and for those qualified, to get their booster shots.
Latest vaccination figures show that, so far, more than 445,400 or 86.8 per cent of adults have taken a first dose, while over 345,000 or 67.3 per cent of persons 18 years and over are fully vaccinated.
For adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17, just over 35,400 doses or 48.7 per cent have received their first dose, while more than 25,900 or 35.6 per cent of them have returned for their second dose.
Vaccines administered to children within the ages of five and 11 years have surpassed 7,000 first doses, which is about 6.9 per cent of that age cohort. Second doses for this group are just over 2,100 or 2.1 per cent.
Meanwhile, in excess of 71,600 persons have returned for their booster shots thus far.
According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) recent figures, some 585,950,085 confirmed cases were reported globally, along with 6,425,422 deaths.
In the Region of the Americas; that is, Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has increased to 172,843,121, while the death toll in the region has gone up to 2,799,851.
As it relates to vaccination against COVID-19, WHO also reported that a total of 12,355,390,461 doses have been administered worldwide. (G8)