Death of Region 4 woman takes COVID-19 fatalities to 611

− 176 new infections recorded, active cases now 1834

The COVID-19 death toll continues to rise in Guyana with another person who tested positive for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) succumbing.
This latest fatality is a 59-year-old female from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) who died on Saturday while receiving care at a medical facility.
With this, the total number of deaths from the pandemic in the country has gone up to 611. The death toll for the month of August is now 65.
However, new statistics released by the Ministry showed that another 176 new COVID-19 cases were detected in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 25,323.
The Ministry’s updated COVID-19 dashboard on Sunday showed that 26 patients are in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU), while 1808 persons are in isolation, that is, 105 in institutional isolation and the remaining 1703 in home isolation.
This takes the current active cases in Guyana to 1834. Additionally, there are also seven other persons in institutional quarantine.
So far, some 22,364 persons have recovered from the life-threatening disease – 46 more recoveries were recorded in the last 24 hours.
Meanwhile, a total of 265,263 persons have been tested for the novel coronavirus since the outbreak of the pandemic here last year. Of this, 12,257 males and 13,066 females were found to be positive.
Of the 176 new COVID cases recorded on Sunday, two were recorded in Region One (Barima-Waini); 14 cases in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam); 43 in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara); a whopping 102 cases in the Demerara-Mahaica region; six in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice); another two cases in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne); four in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) and the remaining three cases in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
There were no new cases recorded in Regions Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) and Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) in the last 24 hours.
In order to curb the rising number of cases in the country, the Guyana Government launched its COVID-19 vaccination exercise back in February and is aggressively rolling it out in the various regions in order to achieve herd immunity.
According to recent figures, more than 60 per cent of the adult population has received their first dose of the vaccine, which is approximately over 308,000 persons. Meanwhile, fully immunised persons in the country are in excess of 159,000, representing just over 30 per cent of the population who are 18 years and older.
However, Government last Thursday rolled out vaccination for children between the ages of 12 and 17 ahead of the reopening of schools next month. This was after Guyana received 146,250 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, which the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved for adolescents.
Since Thursday, over 1000 children in Guyana have been immunised, largely due to Sunday’s vaccination drive at MovieTowne targeting adolescents. Government has said over 4000 students have been granted consent to get vaccinated against the deadly virus.
Persons are encouraged to get immunised 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 have been hospitalised or died from the virus.
Nevertheless, as more 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.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), as of Sunday, some 214,468,601 confirmed cases were reported globally along with 4,470,969 deaths.
The WHO also reported on Sunday that in the Region of the Americas, that is, Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has increased to 82,868,668 while the death toll in the region has gone up to 2,088,341.