Death of Region 4 man takes COVID-19 fatalities to 602

…207 new cases, 23 in ICU

Another person who tested positive for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has died, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday.
This latest fatality is a 58-year-old male from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), who died on Tuesday while receiving care at a medical facility.
With this latest fatality, the total number of deaths from the pandemic has now increased to 602. Consequently, the death toll for the month of August has gone up to 56.
Meanwhile, another 207 new COVID-19 infections were detected in the last 24 hours from 1810 tests conducted.
According to the Ministry’s updated COVID-19 Dashboard for Wednesday, the total number of confirmed cases in the country is now 24,336.
However, only 1596 of these are currently active cases.
These include a whopping 23 patients in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU), while the remaining 1573 persons are in isolation; that is, 108 in institutional isolation and the other 1465 in home isolation.
Additionally, there are five persons in institutional quarantine.
So far, some 22,515 persons have recovered from the life-threatening disease – 53 more recoveries recorded in the last 24 hours.

New COVID-19 cases
Meanwhile, a total of 258,574 persons have been tested for the novel coronavirus since the outbreak of the pandemic here last year. Of this amount, 11,965 males and 12,748 females were found to have contracted the virus.
Of the 207 new COVID cases recorded on Wednesday, two were detected in Region One (Barima-Waini), 20 were detected in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), 31 in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), a whopping 119 in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), four in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), seven in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), 19 in Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and the remaining five cases in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
There were no new cases recorded in Regions Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) and Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) in the last 24 hours.
In order to curb the rising number of cases in the country, the Guyana Government had launched its COVID-19 vaccination exercise back in February, and is aggressively rolling it out in the various regions across the country in order for the Guyanese nation to achieve heard immunity.
According to recent figures, 305,012 persons in the adult population have received their first dose of the vaccine. Meanwhile, there are approximately 155,688 fully immunised persons in the country who are 18 years and older.
During Wednesday’s COVID-19 update, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony pointed out that while there has been an overall increase in the administration of both the first and second doses of the vaccines, vaccine hesitancy is still a major challenge.
On this note, he condemned vaccinated politicians who are supporting and encouraging persons not to get immunised against the deadly virus.
The Health Minister explained that officials have been visiting various communities where there are high levels of vaccine hesitancy to understand the main reasons persons are not taking the jabs.

Leaders are part of the problem
Apart from religious leaders playing a significant role in discouraging persons from getting vaccinated, Dr Anthony said, some political leaders are also part of the problem.
“We also have some political persons who are creating mischief, sowing confusion amongst people who are hesitant, and that’s very unfortunate, because many of these political activists who are sowing that type of confusion, many of them are already vaccinated,” he posited.
Dr Anthony added, “So, they have taken the vaccine, however, now they are encouraging people not to take the vaccine. That’s a very irresponsible thing to do, because you’re now putting other people at risk by the way you’re talking about the vaccine, creating confusion, creating hesitancy, and that’s very irresponsible.”
Nevertheless, the Minister is encouraging persons to realise this duplicity and think for themselves regarding the COVID vaccines. He indicated that this issue is beyond politics, and that it is about saving lives.

“So, I really hope that people can understand, and those persons who have been engaged in this political type of mischief would understand, that this has a lot of implications, because if people are not vaccinated, they’re at higher risk of getting sick, they’re at a higher risk of going to the hospital, and they’re at a higher risk of dying,” he explained.
“So, all of us need to be on one page…that is, we need to talk to people to get them protected. All of us need to encourage people to get vaccinated; that should be the common theme that binds us all, to encourage people to get vaccinated. And so, I really do hope that better sense prevails and that we get all those areas that have been lagging to come out and get vaccinated.”
The APNU+AFC coalition Opposition has organised several protests in Georgetown and Linden against the Government’s vaccination policy.
Many senior Opposition members, including former President David Granger and Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon, are fully vaccinated.
Persons are encouraged to get immunized, since the COVID-19 vaccine gives full protection against death. In fact, Health authorities have disclosed that no one who is fully vaccinated with both doses of the COVID-19 vaccines has been hospitalised or died from the virus.
Moreover, as people continue to get vaccinated, authorities are urging the public to continue observing all COVID-19 preventative measures, particularly masking in public, social distancing, and frequent hand washing and sanitising. The measures also include vaccination requirements to access certain social locations, such as restaurants and cinemas, as well as some Government services. (G8)