41 new COVID infections, 4 in ICU

Some 41 persons have tested positive for the novel coronavirus from just over 400 tests conducted within 24 hours, the Health Ministry said on Sunday.
The total number of confirmed cases in Guyana has gone up to 67,099 of which only 957 are currently active cases. This includes four patients in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the remaining persons in isolation, that is, 24 in institutional isolation and the other 929 in home isolation.
One more person is currently in institutional quarantine.
Guyana’s COVID-19 death roll remains at 1251, with the latest fatalities recorded last Wednesday when both a 65-year-old male from Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) and a 64-year-old female from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) died.
Meanwhile, some 64,891 persons have recovered from the life-threatening virus in the country – 58 more recoveries than the figure reported the previous day.
Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Guyana over two years ago, a total 657,398 tests have been conducted countrywide and of this, some 30,779 males and 36,320 females were found to be positive.
Of the 41 new cases recorded on Sunday, six were from the Pomeroon-Supenaam region, five cases from the Essequibo Islands-West Demerara region, 23 cases from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), one more from Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), and three cases each from Regions Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) and Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni).
There were no new cases recorded in the other four regions across the country within the reporting 24-hour period.
After a prolonged period of declining cases, the Guyana Government, back in March, removed most restrictions as the country moves to recover from the pandemic and return to normalcy. But in recent weeks, there has been a spike in COVID cases here, which health authorities have attributed to the BA.2 subvariant of the Omicron strain.
Latest vaccination figures show that so far, more than 443,000 or 86.4 per cent of adults have taken the first dose, while over 342,000 or 66.8 per cent of persons 18 years and over are fully vaccinated.
For adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17, just over 25,500 or 35 per cent are fully vaccinated.
Vaccination is also available for children between the ages of five and 11 years, hundreds of whom have already received the first dose. In addition, in excess of 67,500 persons have returned for their third-dose booster shots thus far.
According to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recent figures, some 537,591,764 confirmed cases were reported globally along with 6,319,395 deaths.
In the Region of the Americas, that is, Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has increased to 160,719,968 while the death toll in the region has gone up to 2,754,656.
As it relates to vaccination against COVID-19, the WHO also reported that a total of 11,912,594,538 doses have been administered worldwide.