4 patients in COVID ICU as active cases climb to 88

After several weeks of declining cases and over two months of no fatalities, active COVID-19 cases in Guyana are on the rise.
The Health Ministry reported in its updated dashboard on Sunday that five more persons have tested positive for the novel coronavirus within a 24-hour period.
This now takes the total number of active COVID-19 cases in Guyana to 88, which includes four patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the remaining persons in isolation – six in institutional isolation and the other 78 in home isolation.
One other person is also in institutional quarantine.
Guyana’s COVID-19 death toll remains at 1281, while some 70,172 persons have recovered from the life-threatening virus to date – two more recoveries than the figure reported the previous day.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic in Guyana more than two years ago, some 71,541 confirmed cases were recorded and of this amount, 32,800 are males and 38,741 are females. A total of 704,804 tests have been conducted.
Meanwhile of the five new cases recorded on Sunday, four were detected in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) and the remaining one case in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).
Only on Friday, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony reported that there has been an increase in the number of positive COVID-19 cases detected in recent days and reiterated calls for citizens to get vaccinated, especially ahead of the Christmas holidays.
“…over the last two to three days, we’ve had an increase in cases… We’ve also seen increases in the hospitals from zero, to now having six persons in hospital. Of the six that are in hospital, we have three that are in the ICU, with one of those persons being intubated,” he disclosed on Friday.
According to the Health Minister, if people do not take necessary precautions to protect themselves then these numbers will continue to climb.
“COVID is not over. I know a lot of people would want to think so, but we are now having an increase in cases despite having low levels of testing and we are seeing a number of those persons having severe infections that warrants hospitalisation,” he explained.
Dr Anthony further implored that persons get vaccinated and for those qualified, get their booster shots.
“I want to make an appeal to everyone, make sure that your vaccines are up to date, that you have gotten your booster shots because there seem to be a new wave that is coming, and we are seeing the beginning of that wave,” he cautioned.
Currently, over 75,000 booster doses were administered across Guyana.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation has reported that a total of 12,943,741,540 vaccine doses have been administered worldwide.
Additionally, there have been 633,601,048 confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally, including 6,596,542 deaths.
In the region of the Americas including the Caribbean, some 180,912,898 cases were reported along with 2,862,727 deaths. (G8)