– active cases surpassed 10,000 with 1082 new infections
A three-month-old baby and a six-year-old, both girls, have died after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, which continues to ravage the country.
The baby, who hailed from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), died on Friday last while the older child from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) died Monday last. 
Currently, Guyana is only administering COVID-19 vaccines to persons 12 years and above hence these two girls were not vaccinated against the virus.
The other seven COVID-19 fatalities reported by the Ministry of Health on Sunday are a 72-year-old woman from Region Three who was fully vaccinated and died since January 1; a 70-year-old male also from the Essequibo Islands-West Demerara region, whose vaccination status is unknown but died on January 7; a 63-year-old man from Region Three who died on January 9 and at the time, his vaccination status was also unknown; another male, aged 62, from the Demerara-Mahaica region, who was fully vaccinated and died on Saturday last; a 61-year-old male also from Region Four, who was fully vaccinated as well but died on Sunday; a 49-year-old fully vaccinated man, also from Region Four, who died on Saturday, and a 45-year-old woman from Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), who was fully vaccinated and died on Saturday also.
With these, the total number of deaths from the pandemic in Guyana has gone up to 1095. Consequently, the death toll for the year thus far is now 40.
However, new statistics released by the Ministry showed the rapid surge in COVID-19 cases continues in Guyana with a whopping 1082 new infections detected within a 24-hour period, taking active cases in the country to over 10,000 on Sunday.
According to the Health Ministry’s updated COVID-19 dashboard for Sunday, the total number of confirmed cases in Guyana has gone up to 51,203.
Of this, however, a staggering 10,575 are currently active cases. These include 12 patients in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the remaining 10,563 persons are in isolation, that is, 164 in institutional isolation and the remaining 10,399 in home isolation.
There are another five persons are also in institutional quarantine, according to the dashboard.
Additionally, some 39,533 persons have recovered from the life-threatening disease to date – 231 more recoveries than the figure reported the previous day.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country, approximately 470,617 persons have been tested so far and of this, some 23,801 males and 27,402 females were found to be positive.
Of the 1082 new cases reported on Sunday, five were from Region One (Barima-Waini), 14 cases from Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), 193 from the Essequibo Islands-West Demerara region, a whopping 670 cases from the Demerara-Mahaica region, 37 from Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), another 38 cases from the East Berbice-Corentyne, 10 more from Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), eight from Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni), 67 cases from Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and the remaining 40 cases from Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
Health authorities have attributed the rapid rise in COVID-19 cases over the past three weeks to the Omicron variant, which though not deadly is highly transmissible.
As such, persons are being urged to get vaccinated, and for those who are qualified to get their booster shots, in order to add a layer of protection against the virus.
So far, over 416,000 adults or 81.3 per cent have taken a first dose while more than 303,000 or 59.1 per cent of persons 18 and over are fully immunised.
For children between the ages of 12 to 17, some 22,000 or 30.6 per cent are completely vaccinated. Meanwhile, over 24,000 persons have taken their booster dose.
But 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 – which are more significant now with the rapidly-spreading Omicron variant.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) recent figures, some 318,648,834 confirmed cases were reported globally along with 5,518,343 deaths.
The WHO also reported that in the Region of the Americas, that is, Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has increased to 116,725,540 while the death toll in the region has gone up to 2,440,032.
As it relates to vaccination against COVID-19, a total of 9,283,076,642 doses have been administered worldwide.
