…house-to-house vaccination begins in Bartica
The COVID-19 death toll in Guyana continues to spike, as three more persons who tested positive for the novel coronavirus have died.
According to the Health Ministry on Thursday, this now takes the total number of deaths from the pandemic to 441. 
These latest fatalities are a 44-year-old female from Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), a 70-year-old male from Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) and an 83-year-old male from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) – all of whom died on Tuesday last.
The Ministry has explained that these patients were admitted with COVID-19-like symptoms, but succumbed while receiving care at various medical institutions across the country. Samples taken at the time of their admission subsequently returned positive tests.
With these three fatalities, the death toll for the month of June has increased to 43. With 99 fatalities, May became the deadliest month since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus here last year, after surpassing April’s 66 COVID-19 death toll.
New cases
Meanwhile, the updated COVID-19 Dashboard on Thursday shows that another 75 persons have tested positive for the deadly virus in the last 24 hours.
The total number of confirmed cases in Guyana has now gone up to 18,733, but only 1652 are currently active. These include 22 patients in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and 1630 persons in isolation – 109 in institutional isolation and 1521 in home isolation.
Additionally, there are another two persons in institutional quarantine.
Some 63 persons have recovered from the life-threatening disease. With this, the total number of recoveries in Guyana to date is 16,640.
Further, 173,383 persons have been tested for the novel coronavirus in Guyana, of which 9177 males and 9556 females were positive.
A breakdown of the 75 new cases recorded on Thursday revealed that three of these were detected in Region One (Barima-Waini), eight in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), a whopping 43 in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), another 20 cases in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) and the other new case is from Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
No new cases have been detected in Regions Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), Five (Mahaica-Berbice), Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) and Nine (Upper Takutu-Essequibo) in the last 24 hours.
As COVID-19 cases continue to rise, the Guyana Government is aggressively rolling out its vaccination campaign, which started back in February, in the various regions across Guyana in order to achieve herd immunity.
To date, some 224,853 persons have received their first dose of the COVID vaccines, which translates to 46.2 per cent of the adult population. Second doses stand at 94,243 persons or 19.4 per cent of the adult population.
Regional statistics show a 55.9 per cent immunisation in Region One; 42.4 per cent in Region Two; 45.7 per cent in Region Three; 47.8 per cent in Region Four; 49.3 per cent in Region Five; 54 per cent in Region Six; 45 per cent in Region Seven; 29.6 per cent in Region Eight; 43.5 per cent in Region Nine, and 14 per cent in Region 10.
During Thursday’s COVID-19 update, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony informed that house-to-house administration of the vaccines has begun in Bartica, Region Seven. This initiative was previously rolled out in Region 10, which is currently facing the scourge of vaccine hesitancy.
“In Region Seven, they have embarked on a house-to-house campaign in the Bartica area with the hope of getting more people vaccinated. In the Upper and Middle Mazaruni, it is quite flooded, and so the teams are having challenges; so they’re doing more observation for water-borne diseases. But there also have teams there, if people are willing to get their vaccines, they’ll be able to administer it,” the Minister shared.
Nevertheless, as more people continue to get vaccinated, authorities are urging the public to continue observing all COVID-19 preventative measures, particularly masking in public, social distancing, and frequent hand washing and sanitising. The measures also include a 22:30h (10:30pm) to 04:00h (4 am) national curfew.
If anyone is displaying any of the symptoms associated with COVID-19, or needs any additional information, contact the COVID-19 Hotline: 231-1166, 226-7480 or 624-6674 immediately, or visit www.health.gov.gy. (G8)
