27 new COVID-19 cases recorded; 1 in ICU

Another 27 persons have tested positive for the novel coronavirus from 209 tests conducted within a 24-hour period.
This now takes the total number of confirmed cases in Guyana to 69,834, according to the Health Ministry’s updated COVID-19 dashboard on Sunday.
However, only 603 of these are currently active cases, that is, one patient in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the remaining persons in isolation – 580 in home isolation and the other 22 in institutional isolation.
Two other persons are also in institutional quarantine.
In the month of July, over 2400 new COVID-19 infections were detected. This includes over 1070 males and more than 1300 females contracting the virus during last month.
Meanwhile, the COVID-19 death toll in the country is currently at 1271 with the latest fatality recorded on July 25 when a 74-year-old male from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) died. During the month of July, a total of 16 persons died from the virus.
Nevertheless, as of Sunday, some 67,960 persons have recovered from the life-threatening disease in Guyana since its outbreak here over two years ago. This figure shows that 43 more recoveries were recorded when compared to the figure reported the previous day.
To date, a total 676,729 tests have been conducted countrywide and of this, some 32,006 males and 37,828 females were found to be positive.
Of the 27 new cases recorded on Sunday, four were from Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), two more from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), 20 cases from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) and the remaining one case from Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni).
There were no new cases recorded in the other six regions across the country within the reporting 24-hour period.
After a prolonged period of declining cases, the Guyana Government, back in March, removed most restrictions as the country moves to recover from the pandemic and return to normalcy. But in recent weeks, there has been a spike in COVID cases here, which health authorities have attributed to subvariants of the Omicron strain, such as the BA.2 and more recently the BA.5.
To this end, health authorities are urging persons to get vaccinated and for those qualified to get their booster shots.
Latest vaccination figures show that so far, more than 443,977 or 86.7 per cent of adults have taken a first dose, while over 344,642 or 66.2 per cent of persons 18 years and over are fully vaccinated.
For adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17, just over 35,379 or 48.5 per cent have received their first dose, while 25,881 or 35.5 per cent of them have returned for their second dose.
Vaccines administered to children within the ages of five and 11 years have surpassed 6400 doses, which is about 6.3 per cent of that age cohort. Second doses for this group are just over 1070 or 1 per cent.
In addition, in excess of 71,000 persons have returned for their booster shots thus far.
According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recent figures, some 572,239,451 confirmed cases were reported globally along with 6,390,401 deaths.
In the Region of the Americas, that is, Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has increased to 169,953,836 while the death toll in the region has gone up to 2,786,222.
As it relates to vaccination against COVID-19, the WHO also reported that a total of 12,248,795,623 doses have been administered worldwide. (G8)