2 more COVID-19 deaths, 19 new cases

Guyana recorded another two fatalities from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) on Saturday, raising the death toll to 126.
The Health Ministry announced the latest deaths as a 48-year-old woman from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) and a 67-year-old man from Region One (Barima-Waini). They both died while receiving care at a medical facility.
Meanwhile, 19 new cases were also detected. This took the total confirmed cases up to 4126 – comprising of 2196 males and 1966 females.
The latest statistics showed deaths remaining at 124 while nine persons are in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). There are 79 persons in institutional isolation, 716 in home isolation and 39 patients in institutional quarantine. The total active cases are 843.
The country has seen 3228 recoveries – 36 of which were recorded for Saturday. Meanwhile, Guyana has tested 19,624 persons thus far.
A breakdown showed that four new cases were detected in Region One (Barima-Waini), seven in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), one in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), five in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), and two in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
The cases in Regions Five (Demerara-Mahaica), Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) and Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) remains at 28, 72, 375, 132 and 376 respectively.

Successful results
The community of Kwebanna in Region One (Barima-Waini) had seen an upsurge in cases from COVID-19. Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony in an update on Friday noted that four medical teams have been working in the area and the results have been successful thus far.
Kwebanna has a population of about 900 residents and the teams have been able to reach 124 of the 184 households. This exercise is continuing. Presently, there are 53 active cases and testing is continuous.
“We’ve been working in Region One. We’ve had a lockdown now for more than a week and right now, we have four medical teams – three headed by doctors and one by a medex. They have been moving around to different parts of the community, helping with sanitisation, talk to residents, providing education to the residents and so forth. I think that has been successful so far,” the Minister shared.
While they’re working to bring the situation in Kwebanna under control, a small spike was also witnessed in neighbouring Himacabra.
“That’s an area that we’re also paying some attention to because we don’t want the number of active cases to get too high. So the team will be deployed as well to that area so that we can put similar measures in place. We haven’t gotten to a point where we will be locking down the area.”
Dr Anthony insisted that it takes some time to visit each household, spending time to engage residents and conduct the sanitising process. However, it has resulted in enhanced compliance.
“What the medical team on the ground have noticed is that they’re more people that are compliant with our instructions. We’ve seen more people doing social distancing so I think the exercise has been quite successful.”
Government recently extended the lockdown with a modified curfew period between 22:30h and 04:00h. In one week, the Ministry will conduct an evaluation of the country to determine if the lockdown will be extended or relaxed.
“We will observe over the next week because many of the cases that are currently active would be meet the criteria for discharge once they don’t display any deterioration. We’ll do an evaluation in a week’s time and we’ll be in a better position to determine whether it continues or not. We’ll continue doing testing and get a better picture of the epidemiological situation,” the Minister also added. (G12)