4 more fatalities take COVID death toll to 409

− 48 new cases recorded in 24h

Guyana has recorded four more deaths from the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), according to the Health Ministry on Sunday.
These latest fatalities are a 45-year-old female from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), who died on Wednesday last; a 51-year-old female from Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), who died on Thursday, while the other two deaths – a 68-year-old male from Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) and an 82-year-old female from Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) – were recorded on Friday last.
The Ministry explained that these patients were admitted with COVID-19 like symptoms but died while receiving care at various medical institutions across the country. Samples were taken at the time of admission and subsequently returned as positives.
With these, the total number of deaths from the pandemic in Guyana has gone up to 409. So far, the death toll for the month of June is at 11. May became the deadliest month with 99 fatalities since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus here last year after surpassing April’s 66 COVID-19 deaths.
Meanwhile, new statistics provided by the Health Ministry on Sunday showed that another 48 persons have tested positive for COVID-19 from some 841 tests conducted in the last 24 hours.
This now takes the total number of confirmed cases in Guyana to 17,665 – 8725 males and 8940 females.
However, 1882 of these are currently active cases. This includes 20 patients in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the remaining 1862 persons in isolation, that is, 103 in institutional isolation and the other 1759 in home isolation.
Additionally, there are six persons in institutional quarantine.
Some 15,374 persons have recovered from the life-threatening virus thus far – 24 more recoveries than the figure reported the previous day.
To date, 161,186 persons have been tested for the novel coronavirus in Guyana.
Of the 48 new cases detected on Sunday, four were from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara); a whopping 30 cases from the Demerara-Mahaica region; one from Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), two cases from Region Six, eight from Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and the other three cases from Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
There were no new cases recorded in Regions One (Barima-Waini), Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), Seven and Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) in the last 24 hours, according to Sunday’s dashboard.
The Guyana Government launched its COVID-19 vaccination exercise back in February and is aggressively rolling it out in the various regions in order to achieve heard immunity. Only last week, the vaccination campaign reached the milestone of immunising some 200,000 persons with their first dose of the COVID-19 jab.
So far, over 207,000 persons in the adult population have received their first dose of the vaccine. Fully immunised persons in the country stand at 73,000.
A study was recently done using immunised persons from different age groups in the country, whereby over 50 per cent did not display any side effects. Between the 18 to 29 age group, there was 17.9 per cent of persons reporting some form of side effects; with 18.7 per cent for the 30 to 39 age group; 11.7 per cent for the 40 to 49 age group; and 15 per cent for the 50 to 59.
Persons are encouraged to get immunised since the COVID-19 vaccine gives full protection against death.
In fact, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony has disclosed that none of the persons who have died after testing positive for the novel coronavirus had their full vaccination.
Meanwhile, 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. The measures also include a 22:30h (10:30 pm) to 04:00h (4 am) national curfew.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), as of Sunday, some 172,630,637 confirmed cases were reported globally along with 3,718,683 deaths.
The WHO also reported on Sunday that in the Region of the Americas, that is, Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has increased to 68,369,827 while the death toll in the region has gone up to 1,794,865.