The Health Ministry on Tuesday reported that three other persons who tested positive for the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) have succumbed, thus taking Guyana’s death toll to 1073.
The fatalities include a 71-year-old male from Region Four who died on Tuesday; a 77-year-old male also from Region Four and an 81-year-old male from Region Six.
The latter two reportedly died on Monday. Two of the men were unvaccinated while the vaccination status for the third is unknown. The Ministry has since expressed condolences to the families of the three men and would have also reached out to them with the aim of providing the necessary support.
In light of the new deaths, the Health Ministry is continuously urging Guyanese to observe the protocols of the COVID-19 Emergency Measures which are in effect until January 31, 2022.
Emphasis is placed on the need for everyone 12 years and older to get vaccinated; the need for correct and consistent use of face masks; the importance of maintaining the six feet physical distance from others and the need for good hand hygiene in order to reduce the spread of the virus.
However, new statistics released by the Ministry showed that the positive cases have increased by 665. Of the 46,005 positives, 21,490 are males and 24,515 are females. The number of persons in the designated Intensive Care Unit (ICU) has increased from eight on Monday to 13 on Tuesday while there are 89 persons in institutional isolation; 6538 in home isolation and nine in institutional quarantine.
Further statistics showed that 451,724 tests were conducted countrywide.
The breakdown of the new cases revealed that two cases were detected in Region One (Barima-Waini); 19 in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam); 96 in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara); a whopping 457 in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica); 33 in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice); 19 in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne); one in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni); 18 in Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and 20 in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice). No new cases were recorded in Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni).
Meanwhile, Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony on Tuesday stated that the daily uptake in vaccination has jumped significantly in recent days.
On Monday, he revealed that 3325 persons turned up at vaccinations centres across the country to be inoculated against the deadly disease. These include 1521 persons who took the boosters.
Anthony believes that boosters have become very important with the new variant and Guyana is now offering boosters five months after the last vaccine was administered.
“Booster shots are now widely recommended. Six months after your last shot immunity of persons starts to wean… but what they have found is that if between 5-6 months you are given a third dose then the immunity remains quite high,” Dr Anthony related.
For those who have received two doses of AstraZeneca, Pfizer is recommended as a booster. Those with two doses of Sinopharm will get Sinopharm as a third dose. Those with the J&J vaccine (one-shot) will get another as a second (booster) shot.
And those who received two doses of Sputnik V have options; they can receive as a third dose (booster), J&J or Pfizer. With the rush to take the shots, a shortage has been reported and without hesitation, arrangements are being made to have another 25,000 doses of J&J flown in as early as next week.
In addition, the Minister stated that most patients who have developed long-term COVID-19 were persons who were infected with the Delta variant.
With the Omicron variant currently circulating in Guyana, he said authorities are monitoring to see how many persons have developed post-COVID symptoms from this strain of the virus.
“Persons who have been infected with the Delta variant seem to have a wide array of symptoms because Delta affected many organs and persons who would’ve had those types of infections would continue even after discharge with getting some of these symptoms, for example, some people complain that they are having constant headaches, they are having what is called brain fog, meaning sometimes in the midst of conversation they forget what they were talking about and things like that but a lot of these things have been associated more with Delta.”
He added that these persons are currently being monitored by the COVID-19 special task force.
“Long COVID, we have a task force meaning persons from different specialties in medicine coming together to work to identify these cases and also to work with those patients.”
Nevertheless, he added that persons who have been infected before with a different variant can also be re-infected with the Omicron variant.
Thus far, 414,932 or 80.9 per cent of adults have received the first dose of a COVID vaccines while 301,058 or 58.7 per cent have received a second dose of the COVID vaccines.
For children 12 to 17, 31,203 or 42.8 per cent have received a first dose of Pfizer vaccine while 22,141 or 34.4 per cent have received both doses. A total of 18,982 booster doses have been administered.
