52 new COVID-19 cases recorded in 24h

Another 52 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed on Saturday, raising the total confirmed positives to 7939. These emerged after 263 samples were collected and sent for testing.
The new statistics provided in the Health Ministry’s dashboard showed that there are still 180 deaths.
In the facilities, five patients are in the Intensive Care Unit, 54 in institutional isolation, 14 in institutional quarantine and 738 in home isolation. Some 6982 of the 4124 males and 3815 females have recovered completely. To date, Guyana has tested 52,263 individuals.
An analysis of new cases showed that three were confirmed in Region One (Barima-Waini); six in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara); 16 in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica); three in Region Five (Demerara-Mahaica); four in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne); two in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni); three in Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) and 15 in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
Cases in Regions Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) and Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) remain constant at 230 and 410 respectively.
The latest death was reported on Friday after an 86-year-old male from Region Four died at a medical facility. He was the fourth person to succumb to the virus since the beginning of February.
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony informed recently that health teams will randomly visit various communities and conduct testing as part of an exercise to find undetected positives. They would have carried out a similar activity back in December, where a number of positive cases were detected.
“We conducted some specific exercises in a number of villages. Those were effective because we were able to detect positives where we didn’t have positives before. It shows that we probably would have to develop a roving team to move around in random communities and do random checking. That’s something that we will be developing over the next couple of weeks. The places where we had testing going on, I think we were able to yield positive cases,” Anthony was quoted as saying.
Presently, there are fixed sites in all the regions where persons can be tested. In addition to the antigen and PCR tests, another type was introduced using the GeneXpert machines. One was installed in Lethem this week while Linden and New Amsterdam also received one each.
These machines were used to test persons for tuberculosis prior to COVID-19, but were recalibrated to test for the coronavirus.
“They will be able to do the testing at the hospital itself. They don’t have to send samples to Georgetown; they can do it right there and they will be able to get back results within an hour using that particular machine,” he outlined.
The curfew, which forms part of the National COVID-19 Measures, will remain the same throughout February, that is from 22:30h (10:30 pm) to 04:00h (4 am). It clearly outlines that flights from Brazil are prohibited until further notice.
No one is permitted to host or attend a cinema except for drive-in movies; private party, banquet hall, bar, public swimming pool or water park, wake or vigil, club, meeting fraternity or any other social activity. Gyms are to operate at 50 per cent capacity while sporting events are only permitted with approval from the Health Minister. (G12)