2 more COVID-19 deaths, 48 new cases

…as spikes recorded in Regions 9, 10

Guyana’s coronavirus death toll has reached 449, after two more persons lost their battle to the disease on Monday.
There was also an increase of 48 new cases, raising the total confirmed cases to 19,144. There are 18 patients in the Intensive Care Unit, 106 in institutional isolation and 1396 in home isolation. One person is being kept under institutional quarantine. Some 17,175 positive cases have since recovered.
An analysis of new cases showed four in five in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), 26 in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), two in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), nine in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), three in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), two in Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and two in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
Cases in Regions One (Barima-Waini), Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) and Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) are at 1171, 535, 379 and 379 cases, respectively.

Hotspots
In the detection of COVID-19 cases through testing, the Health Ministry has confirmed spikes in Regions Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) – the newest hotspots.
This was communicated by Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony on Monday during the coronavirus briefing. It was noted that Sand Creek, St Ignatius and Lethem in Region Nine are being monitored. This trend has been observed within the past two weeks.
Meanwhile, in Region 10, there is a consistent rise and is coupled with a surge in hospitalisation. The region has been lagging significantly behind in the country’s vaccination campaign, and residents were warned that this could increase their chances of developing the worst form of the virus, that is, the need for intensive care.
“We have also seen over the last couple of weeks, an increase in cases in Region 10 and in specific areas in Region 10, we noticed that those cases have been going up. Of course, we have seen in addition to cases, an increase in hospitalisation in Region 10. We’ve had consistently, patients coming into the Linden Hospital,” Dr Anthony shared.
In terms of testing, the country’s capabilities are adequate to facilitate samples that are sent for analysis. He noted that this arrangement provides patients with their results in just one day.
“So, we have capacity to do approximately 2000 tests. We don’t get as much sample. On average, we get maybe 300 to 400 samples a day and so we’re able to run those tests quite comfortably. People more or less would get back their results within a 24-hour period.”
Antigen kits were also sent to the various regions but the Minister cautioned that the precision of these results is amplified if a person is symptomatic.
“We have found with the antigen test kits, that if people are asymptomatic, then you don’t really get a positive result. You can be negative on the antigen test kit but come back positive on the PCR. That depends on the sensitivity of the test but if you’re symptomatic…very often there’s a good correlation between positive test results and those symptoms,” he revealed.
Meanwhile, some 227,690 persons have since taken their vaccines or 46.8 per cent of the population. For second doses, this figure stands at 98,635 or 20.3 per cent. The Minister was confident that the immunised persons will surpass 100,000 by this week. (G12)