3 more unvaccinated among 4 COVID deaths

…death toll now surpasses 800

Guyana’s COVID-19 death toll has now jumped to 803 following the death of four more persons.
According to the Health Ministry, the fatalities included one partially-vaccinated and three unvaccinated persons.
They were a 48-year-old female from Region Four, who died on September 27; a 62-year-old female from Region Four, who died on October 2; a 67-year-old male from Region Four, who died on October 3; and a 48-year-old male from Region Three, who died on October 4.
The patients were admitted with COVID-19-like symptoms, and died while receiving care at one of the medical institutions. Samples taken at the time of admission subsequently returned positive results.
New statistics provided by the Ministry showed that 103 new infections were detected in the past 24 hours, thus taking the total confirmed cases to 32,586 – 15,455 males and 17,131 females.
The statistics further showed that 31 persons are in the designated Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 3603 in home isolation, 183 in institutional isolation and six in institutional quarantine. The data shows that 28,027 patients have recovered from the life-threatening virus.
A further breakdown of the new cases showed that 20 were recorded in Region One (Barima-Waini); 11 in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam); 21 in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara); 43 in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica); one in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice); one in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne); four in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) and eight in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
No increases were reported in Regions Eight (Potaro-Siparuni), or Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo).

Non-compliant businesses
Meanwhile, businesses violating the national COVID-19 guidelines will be subjected to actions from the National COVID-19 Task Force in order to achieve greater compliance.
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony detailed on Monday that there were instances where people were allowed to enter enterprises with little to no screening as mandated. He noted that if this continued, cases would spike even further.
“The Task Force would be writing to some of these businesses to make sure that we have stronger enforcement of the guidelines, because there are many big businesses that are not asking people for their vaccination status, not checking for it and therefore, there is a free-for-all in these businesses. People are walking out and that’s not what the order is calling for. Unless we have compliance and unless everybody play their role, we are going to have a situation where we are going to continue to have spread,” the Minister cautioned.
Dr Anthony pointed to greater collaboration between the Private Sector and health authorities to achieve this mandate: “We need to get everybody involved. There are still too many persons, too many entities that are not playing that role. I want to appeal to them if they have not been doing so, they can put the measures in place to make sure that they’re one of the compliant businesses.”
Government had gazetted a new set of COVID-19 measures concerning entry into public buildings. Those stipulate that only vaccinated persons or those who present a negative PCR test taken within three days prior could enter any public building. Public buildings have been classified as both State-owned and private premises such as supermarkets, restaurants, malls, and places of worship, etc.

Active cases
Active cases in Guyana have surpassed 4100, but these are highly concentrated in Regions Three and Four. There has been a ‘steady’ increase in Region Two with spikes in Regions Seven and 10.
“These are areas we’re on the lookout for. With the increase in cases, we’re also seeing correspondingly hospitalisation in these different regions,” Dr Anthony noted.
There are 119 persons hospitalised across the country, inclusive of 83 at the Infectious Diseases Hospital. Some 31 persons are in the ICU, with nine maternal cases.
A total of 361,626 first doses have been administered in Guyana, covering 70.5 per cent of the adult population. Second doses stand at 209,506 or 57.9 per cent. Adolescent vaccination figures are at 24,939 or 34.2 per cent for the first doses and 12,762 or 17.5 per cent for the second.
“In total, we have administered so far in Guyana, 608,833 doses…,” the Minister related.