…34 fatalities in 12 days
The Health Ministry on Thursday announced that two more persons who tested positive for the novel coronavirus have died, hiking the local death toll to 333.
The latest fatalities are two males: a 64-year-old and a 55-year-old from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), who both died on Wednesday while receiving care at a medical facility. For May, 34 deaths have been reported. The deadliest month has been April 2021, with 66 reported deaths.
On Monday, four persons: a 78-year-old male from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), a 69-year-old female from Region Four, a 63-year-old female from Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) and a 66-year-old male from Region One (Barima-Waini) succumbed.
New cases
On Thursday, 186 new cases were detected from 1364 tests. The updated Health Ministry dashboard showed the total confirmed cases moving up to 14,845.
There are 12 patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 111 in institutional isolation, 1696 in home isolation and eight in institutional quarantine. Active cases are now down to 1819 while 12,693 recoveries were recorded.
Since the pandemic started, 133,695 individuals have been tested locally – with 7429 males and 7416 females returning positive results.
Of the new cases, 28 were from Region Three; 86 from Region Four; seven from Region Five (Demerara-Mahaica); 25 from Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne); 21 from Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni); 16 from Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and three from Region 10 .
There were no new cases in Regions One; Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) and Eight (Potaro-Siparuni).
Current hotspots are Tuschen in Region Three; Georgetown, Diamond, Kitty, Sophia and Mon Repos in Region Four; New Amsterdam in Region Six; Bartica in Region Seven; and Amelia’s Ward in Region 10.
More vaccine outreaches
The latest statistics have shown that 161,886 persons received their first dose of the vaccine, while 18,526 were completely vaccinated. Region 10 continues to lag behind with a 10 per cent coverage of the adult population while Region Six leads with 40 per cent.
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony notified the public on Thursday in the coronavirus update that more outreaches were organised for this weekend, so as to increase the vaccination numbers.
“We will be doing a lot more outreach work this weekend. I know the teams in the different regions have been planning outreaches, so over the weekend, there will be many more sites. On average, we’re hoping to operate close to 100 sites. People on the weekends have a little more time, so perhaps we’ll see a better uptake,” he informed.
For those companies and other organisations that mobilised persons to take the first shot, he encouraged them to follow suit for the second dose to be administered.
“We want to continue those partnerships, so we have been working with a number of companies. Those companies who would have organised for us to do the first dose of the vaccine, we’d like them to do the second dose so we can make sure that we immunise those working population,” the Minister outlined. (G12)
