65 new COVID-19 cases recorded in 24h

…increase linked to holiday violations – Health Minister

Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony on Tuesday explained that the increased COVID-19 cases recorded in recent days may be linked to the holiday season, when many persons became complacent.
He contended that there were many instances where people were seen flouting the guidelines by gathering in large numbers without the use of masks.
“We’re going to see cases going up as we do more testing but also, because people were not complying with the guidelines. Some of the things that we noticed over the holidays were that people were in close proximity to each other. A lot of people were not wearing masks so if they were doing that, then the likelihood of being exposed to someone who are asymptotic, could be high…So we might be seeing some of that uptake from what transpired over the holidays,” Dr Anthony indicated.
Towards the ending of 2020, the active cases and positives per day were improving significantly. But the Ministry is now witnessing another surge, which is reflected in the daily statistics. While 13 cases were reported on Monday, this number reached over 60 on Tuesday.
“Over the last 24 hours, we did probably about 400 tests and we’re taking that up. We’re increasing our testing and of those tests that we did, we have [65] people who are positive, which is a big increase from the last 24 hours.”
For Regions Five and Seven where there were spikes in the cases, he noted that a team was deployed to Morakobai over the weekend. From 71 samples, 33 returned positive. In total, 49 cases were detected in Region Five while Region Seven recorded about 15 positives. The Minister said they are hoping to increase testing and also develop better collaboration with the Village Council to bring the situation under control.
As it relates to the positives across the dormitories, this number has moved to 45 students across the country. He posited that when these persons are away from home, there is increased contact in the communities, which could account for some of the infections.
“My understanding is that a lot of students, when they are away from school, there is a lot of intermingling in the community and if they are doing so without observing the same rules that we have… then you’re going to get infected. And they can bring that infection home so parents need to talk to their children to ensure that they understand how transmission occurs,” Dr Anthony advised.
New cases
On Tuesday, a whopping 65 new cases of COVID-19 was reported; contributing to an overall total of 6653 cases and 170 deaths. Active cases also increased to 436.
There are three patients in the designated Intensive Care Unit, with 55 persons in institutional isolation, 378 in home isolation and 34 in institutional quarantine.
From the 3421 males and 3232 females that contracted the virus, 6047 have recovered. To date, 42,132 persons have been tested – 391 of which were conducted on Tuesday.
The new cases were distributed across six regions, with two in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), 21 in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), 35 in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), one in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), four in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) and two in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
The cases in Regions One (Barima-Waini), Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) and Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) remain at 976, 204, 219 and 403. (G12)