61 new COVID-19 cases recorded; 1 in ICU

Another 61 persons have tested positive for the novel coronavirus from 367 tests conducted within a 24-hour period.
This now takes the total number of confirmed cases in Guyana to 70,009, according to the Health Ministry’s updated COVID-19 Dashboard for Thursday.
However, only 513 of these are currently active cases, with one patient in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the remaining persons in isolation – 491 in home isolation and the other 21 in institutional isolation.
The COVID-19 death toll in the country is currently at 1271 with the latest fatality recorded on July 25 when a 74-year-old male from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) died. During the month of July, a total of 16 persons died from the virus, while no fatalities have been recorded thus far in August.
Some 68,225 persons have recovered from the life-threatening disease in Guyana since its outbreak here over two years ago. This shows that 85 more recoveries were recorded when compared to the figure reported the previous day.
To date, a total of 677,998 tests have been conducted countrywide and of this number, positive results have been returned for some 32,083 males and 37,926 females.
Of the 61 new cases recorded on Thursday, one was from Region One (Barima-Waini), four from Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), three from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), 42 from Demerara-Mahaica, two cases each from Regions Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) and Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo), and the remaining five cases were from Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice)
There were no new cases recorded in Regions Five (Mahaica-Berbice) and Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) within the 24-hour reporting period.

Get vaccinated
After a prolonged period of declining cases, the Guyana Government, back in March, removed most restrictions as the country moved to recover from the pandemic and return to normalcy. But in recent weeks, there have a spike in COVID cases here, which health authorities have attributed to subvariants of the Omicron strain, such as the BA.2 and more recently the BA.5.
To this end, health authorities are urging persons to get vaccinated and for those who qualify, to get their booster shots.
The latest vaccination figures show that so far, more than 445,000 or 86.8 per cent of adults have taken a first dose, while over 344,700, or 67.2 per cent, are fully vaccinated.
For adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17, just over 35,400, or 48.6 per cent, have received their first dose, while more than 25,900, or 35.5 per cent, have returned for their second dose.
Vaccines administered to children within the ages of five and 11 have surpassed 6800, which is about 6.7 per cent of that age cohort. Second doses for this group are just over 1900 or 1.9 per cent.
Meanwhile, in excess of 71,200 persons have returned for their booster shots thus far.
According to the World Health Organisation’s recent figures, some 578,148,444 confirmed cases were reported globally along with 6,405,080 deaths.
In the Region of the Americas, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has increased to 171,312,848 while the death toll has gone up to 2,791,967.
As it relates to vaccination against COVID-19, WHO also reported that a total of 12,308,330,588 doses have been administered worldwide. (G8)