37 new COVID-19 cases recorded

From a total of 654 swabs that were sent for testing on Saturday, 37 persons tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Thus far, Guyana has recorded 8550 confirmed positives.
The Health Ministry’s dashboard showed that there are still 195 deaths. Some 64,463 persons have been tested thus far, in which 4417 males and 4133 females were positive.
Nevertheless, there are four patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 22 persons in institutional isolation, 358 in home isolation and 18 in institutional quarantine. Recoveries stand at 7971 with 492 active cases.
A breakdown showed that of the new cases there were six in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), 29 in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), and two in Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo).
The cases in Regions One (Barima-Waini), Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), Five (Mahaica-Berbice), Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) and 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) remain at 1019; 234; 232; 463; 771 and 648 respectively.
On Friday, the Health Ministry extended the COVID-19 Emergency Measures, in which the 22:30h (10 pm) to 04:00h (4 am) national curfew remains intact. All other measures continue throughout the new month and expire unless extended on March 31, 2021.
In another week’s time, Guyana will receive a massive donation of COVID-19 vaccines – this time from the Government of India, which has promised some 80,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine to the country.
Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony said on Friday “The Government of India been generous enough to allocate vaccines to the Caribbean in general. I think they’ve allocated 500,000 doses to the Caribbean and in that allocation, Guyana is going to get 80,000 doses.”
“We are now working on the exact date and time when those vaccines are going to arrive. But we’re getting a donation from the Government of India of 80,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine,” the Health Minister added.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was developed in the United Kingdom and is being manufactured in India by the Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer.
India has already donated 170,000 AstraZeneca vaccines to the Caribbean – 70,000 to Dominica and the remaining 100,000 to Barbados from which Guyana was given a portion.
Guyana rolled out the administration of the COVID-19 vaccines to frontline workers two weeks ago. Those jabs have already been used to vaccinate some 2000 frontline healthcare workers.
Earlier this week, Dr Anthony had said his Ministry will go ahead and administer all the vaccines donated by Barbados as the first dose and await the arrival of follow-up jabs for the second dose. Meanwhile, Guyana is now awaiting the arrival of some 104,000 vaccines from the COVAX facility, which will arrive sometime next month.
Additionally, the country is also expected to get donations of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and China’s Sinopharm vaccine, which were already given emergency use approvals here in anticipation of their arrival.