…death toll now 1245, 85 new cases detected
Another person who tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Guyana has died, according to the Health Ministry on Friday.
This latest fatality is a 79-year-old male from Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), who died on June 15. He was partially vaccinated, that is, he only took his first dose up to the time of his death.
The total number of deaths from the pandemic in the country has now gone up to 1245.
However, new statistics provided by the Ministry showed that 85 more persons have contracted the virus within a 24-hour period, taking the total number of confirmed cases to 66,385.
But only 964 of these are currently active cases including two patients in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the remaining persons in isolation – 20 in institutional isolation and 942 in home isolation.
There are two other persons in institutional quarantine. Presently, there are 20 patients hospitalised across the country with 10 of them at the Ocean View Hospital.
Additionally, some 64,176 persons have recovered from the life-threatening virus to date – 78 more recoveries than the figure reported the previous day.
Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Guyana over two years ago, a total 650,719 tests have been conducted countrywide and of this, some 30,469 males and 35,916 females were found to be positive.
Of the new cases, two are from Region One (Barima-Waini); 12 cases from Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam); 10 from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara); 41 cases from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica); 16 more from the East Berbice-Corentyne region and the remaining four cases from Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni).
There were no new cases in the other four regions across the country within the reporting 24-hour period.
But authorities have identified Regions Three, Four and Six as hotspots since they presently have the highest number of active cases with 114, 434 and 242, respectively.
In March, the Guyana Government had removed most restrictions as the country moves to recover from the pandemic and return to normalcy. But there has been a spike in cases in recent weeks, which local health authorities attributed to strains of the Omicron variant here.
As such, persons are still being encouraged to get vaccinated, and for those who are 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 443,177 or 86.4 per cent of adults have taken a first dose, while some 342,918 or 66.8 per cent of persons 18 years and over are fully vaccinated.
For adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17, just over 34,833 or 47.8 per cent of them have received their first dose, and of that amount, some 25,532 or 35 per cent are fully immunised.
In the 5 to 11 age group, for which the Health Ministry started administering vaccines only last weekend, some 688 children were inoculated.
Moreover, approximately 67,514 persons have returned for their third-dose booster shots thus far.
Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony on Friday said the adult vaccination numbers are “pretty good”, noting that they are hoping to get second doses up to at least 70 per cent, which is the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendation. He said the country is not “far off” from achieving that.
On the other hand, he pointed out that the challenge with the adolescent group is that parental permission is required and so he urged parents and guardians to support efforts in immunising those teens.
While he further stated that the vaccination of the 5-11 cohort seems to be going well, Dr Anthony continued to implore with persons who are qualified, to get their booster shots.
“If you’re not boosted then you wouldn’t have the antibodies to fight off Omicron. So, it is better for people to get their primary doses and also to be boosted, and there is [no] excuse not to boosted because we have those vaccines available here for persons. In fact, we’ve been advocating a second booster dose for persons 18 years and older.”
In fact, to facilitate the working population including parents, the Health Ministry has organised a late-night vaccine drive at Cuffy Square in Georgetown.
Dr Anthony noted that if the response at this exercise is positive then the Ministry would consider adopting it permanently.
“We want to make sure that the hours we have are flexible enough to allow parents and other persons who are busy to be able to have access to vaccination. So, we don’t want people to have excuses, we want people to get vaccinated,” he stressed.
