COVID death toll now stands at 442 with 1 more fatality

– 104 new cases recorded in 24h

Guyana’s COVID-19 death toll now stands at 442, with the death of one more person who tested positive for the virus.
The latest fatality is a 67-year-old female from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara) who died while receiving care at a medical facility.
For the month of June, 44 persons have died thus far. The deadliest month was May, with 99 fatalities.
However, new statistics provided by the Ministry showed that 104 new cases were recorded on Friday, raising the total confirmed cases to 18,837. There are 21 patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 108 in institutional isolation and 1371 in home isolation. There are zero persons in institutional quarantine. Some 16,895 positive cases have since recovered.
An analysis of new cases showed two were recorded in Region One (Barima-Waini); eight in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam); five in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), 34 in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), nine in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) and 11 in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
Cases in Regions Five (Mahaica-Berbice); Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni); Eight (Potaro-Siparuni), and Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) remain at 639, 1235, 379 and 1142, respectively.
On Thursday, President Irfaan Ali said talks have been ongoing with several countries and manufacturers to make COVID-19 vaccines accessible. The President assured this is of utmost importance, in order to bring normalcy back to the country and livelihoods.
“We tried diplomatic channels. We tried every single thing and we continue to try every single day. We have requests with every single developer and manufacturer…I made it very clear to the Guyanese people because there is no cost to protecting the lives of Guyanese. That is the only interest of the Government,” the Head of State was quoted as saying.
Some 225,000 persons have received their first dose of the COVID vaccines while second doses stand at over 94,000 persons. No immunised person in Guyana has since developed any complications nor were they hospitalised.
Nevertheless, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony underscored in a recent press conference that the vaccine prevents against any severe infection. This means persons would not require intensive care. He mentioned that it is expensive to sustain these ICU costs as the population was encouraged to take their shots.
“The medicines that we’re using, some of them cost almost US$100 per vial. In other instances, if you’re in the ICU, you would require 15 litres of oxygen per minute, and that’s a lot of costs. Per patient in an ICU, it cost us millions of dollars, and what we’re trying to do here by providing vaccines is to make sure that people can have access to vaccines in a timely manner.”
A study was recently done using immunised persons from different age groups in the country, whereby over 50 per cent did not display any side effects. Between the 18 to 29 age group, there was 17.9 per cent of persons reporting some form of side effects; with 18.7 per cent for the 30 to 39 age group; 11.7 per cent for the 40 to 49 age group; and 15 per cent for the 50 to 59.
If anyone is displaying any of the symptoms associated with COVID-19 or needs any additional information, contact the COVID-19 Hotline 231-1166, 226-7480 or 624-6674 immediately or visit www.health.gov.gy.