2 more COVID-19 deaths, 13 new cases recorded

The Health Ministry announced that two more persons who tested positive for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) died on Wednesday.
The latest victims are a 65-year-old female from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) and a 64-year-man from Region One (Barima-Waini), both of whom died while receiving care at medical facilities.
This now takes the total number of deaths to 123.
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry on Wednesday also reported 13 new COVID-19 cases.
According to the Ministry’s updated dashboard, there are now 4074 confirmed cases in the country. Of these, however, only 866 are active cases. These include nine persons in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Georgetown Public Hospital and the other 857 persons in isolation – 95 in institutional isolation and 762 in home isolation.
In addition, there are 27 persons in institutional quarantine, while some 3083 persons have recovered from the life-threatening virus. To date, some 18,900 persons have been tested for the novel coronavirus.
Of the 13 new cases recorded on Wednesday, two are from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara); eight from Demerara-Mahaica and three from Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).
The figures in other regions remain the same: 677 cases in Barima-Waini; 73 in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam); 27 cases in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice); 375 in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni); 131 in Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni); 375 in Region Nine (Upper Essequibo-Upper Takutu) and 137 cases in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Upper Berbice).
Since taking office, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government has embarked on a massive testing drive to ensure that all positives cases, especially asymptomatic cases, are detected. This has resulted in a high number of cases being detected.
Only recently, there has been a surge of COVID-19 cases in Region One – which has the second highest number of cases in the country. However, just over 90 of the 677 cases are currently active in that region.

In recent days, the small community of Kwebanna has become a COVID-19 hotspot and is currently under a full 14-day lockdown to curb the spread of the disease.
During his daily update on Wednesday, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony disclosed that Kwebanna has accounted for most of the region’s 61 cases.
Meanwhile, as authorities continue to battle to curb the novel coronavirus, efforts are afoot to boost capacity in the health sector to deal with COVID-19.
According to the Health Minister, there are a series of training exercises being executed by Government.
He noted that there was training on mental health ongoing so that health-care workers are better able to identify and treat persons with mental health issues. Primary health-care workers are also being trained to conduct counselling.
Dr Anthony had said there were also some in-house training to teach health-care workers how to operate the ventilators. This initiative, led by the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), is a two-part training that involves an online theoretical aspect and then some practical sessions.
Additionally, Guyana will be partnering with the Government of Chile to conduct an online training from November 2 to 20, 2020 on the management of severe and critically-ill COVID-19 patients. This training will be free for all medical professionals.
Also, in November, a number of physicians from the United States will be here to work with local teams to conduct onsite training at the various regional hospitals across the country.