The country’s COVID-19 curve took a sharp turn on Monday, with the detection of a whopping 19 new cases of the virus.
Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shamdeo Persaud
Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shamdeo Persaud noted that 143 tests were done in a 24-hour period, of which 19 came back positive. He noted that all of the 19 new positives were from Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo), thus bringing the total number of cases to 389.
The figures saw a steep increase within the past three days, with eight cases on Saturday, 10 on Sunday and on Monday, 19 positive cases. This upsurge comes in the face of relaxed curfew hours, continued mining activities and wide leverage for business operations to resume, which was permitted under the National COVID-19 Task Force through a gazetted order.
While there are 20 deaths, the number of active cases in institutional isolation is 188; 34 persons are in institutional quarantine and 4 persons are in the designated Intensive Care Unit. To date, 181 persons have recovered. The total number of tests done is 5624 and the number of persons tested is 4416.
Since the detection of the first case, the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) has seen a total of 57 persons – 11 of which have died. Nine of these were discharged after recovering and 29 were transferred.
“For your information, those discharged from both the ICU and the Isolation Centres are in accordance with the recent WHO guidelines which Guyana adopted. This ensures that everyone who is discharged is assessed as free of COVID-19,” the CMO said.
He acknowledged the steady increases in the hinterland region, and that all cases from this weekend were from this part of Guyana. On Saturday, all of the nine cases came from Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni). On Sunday, four of the cases were from Region Nine and six were from Region Seven.
“We continue to emphasise that there is need for more community action. Village Councillors, gatekeepers and prominent members of the communities, we are asking you to remind those who look up to you to tell them that we can only keep the transmission down if you stay at home and only leave if there is an urgent need,” the CMO urged.
The general populace was urged to continue their practice of social distancing and hygiene measures to eliminate a spread of the virus.
“Fellow Guyanese, you are aware that there is still no cure or vaccine available for this disease, so you have to live with this for a few more months or for as long as the disease persists; therefore, you have to ensure that these practices become part of your routine.”
According to the World Health Organisation, the global statistics show that more than 200,000 new cases have been reported in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 15,785,641 cases with 640,016 deaths.
In the region of the Americas, there were 93,499 new cases, bringing the total to 8,385,810 with 332,589 deaths.
