39-year-old is latest COVID-19 death

…65 new cases recorded
…Parliamentarians, Cabinet next in line for vaccine

Under the coronavirus vaccine administration programme, the Health Ministry is currently making preparations to offer shots to Members of Parliament (MPs) within the next week.
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony made this disclosure on Thursday, stating that the vaccines will be open to any Member of Parliament or Cabinet who wishes to be immunized during the current round. As it is, authorities are rolling out the 100,000 doses countrywide that was received from the Chinese and Indian Governments.
“We’ve been talking to the parliament and we’ve been making arrangements to ensure that MPs who would like to have their vaccines in this round, that we’re able to give the vaccines to them. I’m sure that over the next week or so, different members of the cabinet would also be taking their vaccines,” he informed.
Former Presidents Donald Ramotar, Samuel Hinds and David Granger have already taken their vaccine in addition to Prime Minister Mark Phillips under the elderly group, ranging 60 years and older.
This extension started on Wednesday, having recognized from the country’s data that older persons are more at risk for contracting the novel virus. Since then, there was a smooth rollout with just a few glitches that will be fixed and persons are encouraged to turn up for their vaccines once qualified under this bracket.
“I think the response has been tremendous. There have been a few problems. I think people did not know where to go and we’re sorting it out but the response has been great. People have been coming out, getting their vaccines and we’ve been observing persons to make sure that after they receive their vaccines, we observe them for 15 minutes just to make sure they’re okay. I would encourage everyone to please ensure that they come out and get their vaccines,” the Minister explained.
Dr Anthony added that many of the deaths reported in Guyana were persons within the elderly group. With immunization in the form of the vaccine, protection will be offered from the worse form of the virus and essentially, save lives.
“It will protect you from getting the more severe form of the disease and therefore, it would protect our elderly population. We’re extremely pleased to be able to offer this vaccine to persons 60 years and above.”
Simultaneously, healthcare workers the public and private sectors region are being immunized if the voluntarily decide to take the jab. Doses have been set aside to cover the 12,000 workers who stand to benefit.
He expounded, “We have allocated in a sense, vaccines to cover this group. We have sent those doses out to the different regions we’re inoculating. At the same time, we’ve looked at the elderly populations in these regions and allocated accordingly. Hopefully, we can get more people getting their vaccines as quickly as possible.”
Zeroing in on the vaccines being used, it was outlined that the Sinopharm vaccine is highly efficacious, at about 74.9 per cent. On the other hand, increasing the intervals between the AstraZeneca vaccine raises the efficacy to about 82 per cent.
The health official assured, “The vaccines that are available, they work. That is what we want people to understand. Sinopharm is safe. Sinopahrm is right now listed by the WHO in what is called an emergency use listing, pending the full consultation.”
There are several vaccines pending approval by the WHO to be added on the Emergency Use Authorization – in which Pfizer and Moderna have achieved. However, the results from trials have led several countries to approve these vaccines for their respective immunization rollout.
“There is nothing being reported in the scientific literature to say that ‘if you use this vaccine, this is really bad’. We would have seen this all over the place. We’re not seeing that and in fact, right now the demand for these vaccines is so great that it is very hard to access vaccines globally.”
New death
As of Thursday, another person who tested positive for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) died. This takes the total number of deaths from the pandemic to 206.
The latest fatality is a 39-year-old female from Region Ten (Upper Demerara-Berbice) who died while receiving care at a medical facility. The woman recently underwent a surgery.
Within 24 hours, the country also saw an increase of 65 new cases. Overall positive have now climbed to 8993 – 4630 males and 4363 females.
According to the Ministry’s dashboard, there are seven persons in the designated Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 519 on home isolation, 31 in institutional isolation and 16 in institutional quarantine. The data shows that 8230 patients have since recovered.
From the new cases, 19 were detected in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara); 19 in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica); one in Region Five (Demerara-Mahaica); two in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne); three in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) and two in Region Nine (Upper Essequibo- Upper Takutu).
The cases in Regions One (Barima-Waini), Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), Eight (Potaro-Siparuni), and 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) remains at 1023, 237, 246 and 661 respectively.