9 new COVID-19 cases confirmed in 3 hinterland regions

ꟷ active cases now at 159

The COVID-19 outbreak in Guyana’s hinterland regions continues to worsen as nine new novel coronavirus cases have been confirmed from 82 tests that were conducted in 24 hours.
This now brings the total number of the coronavirus cases in Guyana up to 336, the Public Health Ministry’s updated COVID-19 dashboard on Sunday detailed.
There are now 159 active cases in the country – 154 in institutional isolation and the other five cases in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
Guyana Times understands that the nine new cases are from hinterland regions, that is, seven are from Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Essequibo) and one each from Regions One (Barima-Waini) and Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni).
Additionally, 14 persons are in institutional quarantine.
Both the COVID-19 death toll as well as the number of recovered cases remain the same at 19 and 163, respectively.
Meanwhile, to date, a total of 3685 persons have been tested for the novel coronavirus, of which some 3349 are negative.
Sunday’s nine new hinterland cases come on the heels of health authorities announcing last week that Region One is now Guyana’s epicentre for the COVID-19 outbreak in Guyana.
It has overtaken the capital city of Georgetown, Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) – which was initially dubbed as the epicentre since the initial stages of the pandemic.
As such, with the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF) relaxing some of the emergency measures that were put in place to curb the spread of the virus as part of Government’s plans to reopen the economy, this was not extended to hard-hit communities in these hinterland regions.
While the curfew hours have been changed from 20:00h to 06:00h (8 pm to 6 am) for the rest of the country, the previous 18:00h to 06:00h curfew will remain in Aranka and Arangoy in Region Seven, and Moruca in Region One until August 3. In fact, these two regions are targeted for intervention owing to the uncontrollable infection rate.
Last week, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Karen Gordon-Boyle, had lamented the actions of residents in the Moruca Sub-district, despite an alarming upsurge in cases.
“It is disappointing to note that the attitude of some of the residents in the sub-district of Moruca has been averse to the basket of health measures that have been outlined for their safety and protection. They are blatantly flouting the guidelines, claiming in some instances that COVID-19 is non-existent and therefore there is no need for a lockdown in that district,” Dr Gordon-Boyle had noted.
Residents had protested against the complete shutdown on the community earlier this month, citing that Government provided no relief prior to the announcement, and as such, they were forced to continue their trade to earn a living.
During an assessment of the situation, Regional Vice Chairman Sarah Browne said many concerns were listed by these persons, along with solutions to be considered.
Among other issues, farmers are denied access to their lands and other persons are restricted from accessing the hospital. Cargo boats are denied entry while carrying supplies for local businesses.
While vendors were told to operate for three hours, it was indicated that this cannot suffice to provide for their families. Issues were also raised about “improper protocols” for testing of the coronavirus and distribution of the results thereafter.
Moreover, all families are not benefitting from the relief efforts. As such, the provision of relief was labelled as mandatory by the people before accepting a shutdown.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the total number of COVID-19 cases in the region of the Americas is more than 7,376,000 while the number of deaths is over 305,000.
Globally, there are in excess of 14 million coronavirus cases recorded while the death toll has reached over 600,000.