76-year-old fully vaccinated man dies from COVID

– 9 new cases detected as persons urged to take precautions over holiday weekend

Within a 24-hour period, a second person who tested positive for the novel coronavirus has died in Guyana.
This latest fatality is a 76-year-old male from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) who died on Wednesday, April 13. At the time, the elderly man was fully vaccinated.
The COVID-19 death toll in Guyana has now gone up to 1,228.
Only Wednesday, the Health Ministry reported the death of a 90-year-old unvaccinated woman from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) earlier that day.
These two fatalities are the first recorded for the month of April, and their deaths come nearly one month after the last COVID-19 death was recorded on March 16.
However, new statistics provided by the Ministry showed that another nine persons have tested positive for COVID-19, thus taking the country’s total number of confirmed cases to 63,358.
However, only 100 of these cases are currently active, including one patient in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the remaining persons in isolation; that is: 10 in institutional isolation and the other 89 in home isolation. There are also 24 more persons in institutional quarantine.
In addition to the one patient in the COVID-19 ICU, there are eight other patients at the Infectious Disease Hospital at Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown, while a total of 11 patients are hospitalised across the country.
Additionally, some 62,030 persons have recovered after contracting the life-threatening disease in the country – six more recoveries than the figure reported the previous day.
Meanwhile, since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Guyana over two years ago, a total of 581,654 tests have been conducted countrywide, and of this, some 29,166 males and 34,192 females were found to be positive.
Of the nine new cases detected on Thursday, one was from Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), another from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), six were from Region Four (Demerara- Mahaica), and the remaining one case was from Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo).
There were no new cases in the other six regions across the country within the reporting 24-hour period.
This declining trend in COVID-19 cases has resulted in the Guyana Government last month removing most restrictions as the country moves to recover from the pandemic and return to normalcy.
But while mandates such as masking in public and social distancing are no longer in place, health authorities are still encouraging persons to get vaccinated, and for those who are so qualified, to get their booster shots in order to add a layer of protection against the virus.
Latest figures show that, so far, more than 439,140 or 85.6 per cent of adults have taken a first dose of the vaccine, and of that amount, some 338,208 or 65.9 per cent of persons 18 years and over are fully vaccinated.
For adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17, approximately 34,407 or 47.2 per cent of them have received their first dose, while some 25,160 or 34.5 per cent of them are fully immunised.
In addition, in excess of 60,612 persons have returned for their booster shots thus far.
But even as COVID-19 cases continue to drop, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony has pointed out that while the Government has moved to open up the country and remove most of the restrictions, Guyana is not completely rid of COVID-19, and is still not a place where there are zero COVID-19 cases.
To this end, Dr Anthony is urging citizens to be cautious and take the necessary precautions to protect themselves, especially during this upcoming holiday weekend, when for the first time in two years people will be able to spend Easter outdoors.
“People must take the relevant precautions. Those precautions would be that you should, if you’re in a congested environment, at least have on a mask; and if you must be in those environments, at least wear the masks; and ensure that you’re vaccinated, because we know that vaccination would help to prevent the severe form of the infection and, in many cases, prevent hospitalisation,” Dr Anthony said during Thursday’s COVID-19 update.
According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) recent figures, some 500,186,525 confirmed cases were reported globally, along with 6,190,349 deaths.
In the Region of the Americas; that is, Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has increased to 151,691,843, while the death toll in the region has gone up to 2,711,779.
As it relates to vaccination against COVID-19, WHO also reported that a total of 11,294,502,059 doses have been administered worldwide.