…62 new cases recorded
Three more females who tested positive for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) have died, according to the Health Ministry on Sunday.
These latest fatalities are a 76-year-old woman from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), who died on Sunday; a 79-year-old woman from Region Four (Demerara- Mahaica) who also died on Sunday, and a 70-year-old woman, also from Region Four, who died on Saturday.
With the exception of the Region Three female, who was unvaccinated, the other two women were fully vaccinated.
Nevertheless, the total number of deaths in Guyana from the pandemic has gone up to 1020. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 death toll for the month of December is now at 21.
According to the Health Ministry on Sunday, some 62 new COVID-19 cases were detected within a 24-hour period, taking the total number of confirmed cases in the country to 38,554.
Of this, however, only 895 are currently active cases including 14 patients in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the remaining 881 persons in isolation, that is, 43 in institutional isolation and the other 838 in home isolation.
In addition, there are also five persons in institutional quarantine.
To date, some 36,639 persons have recovered from the life-threatening virus – three more recoveries than the figure reported the previous day.
Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Guyana last year, some 404,841 persons have been tested, from which 18,177 males and 20,377 females have tested positive to date.
Of the 62 new cases recorded on Sunday, three were from Region One (Barima-Waini), another three from the Essequibo Islands-West Demerara region, 20 cases from the Demerara-Mahaica region, five from Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), a whopping 24 cases from Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), one more from Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) and the remaining six cases from Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
No new cases were recorded in Regions Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) and Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) on Sunday.
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 across the various regions in order to achieve herd immunity.
The latest vaccination figures show that over 435,000 first doses have been administered across the country, accounting for about 56.3 per cent of the population. Overall, second dose coverage has crossed 39.5 per cent.
Persons are encouraged to get immunised since the COVID-19 vaccine provides a layer of protection against severe symptoms of the deadly COVID-19.
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 any public building such as restaurants, places of worship, schools as well as Government buildings.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), recent figures show that some 267,865,289 confirmed cases were reported globally along with 5,285,888 deaths.
The WHO also reported that in the Region of the Americas, that is, Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has increased to 98,346,191 while the death toll in the region has gone up to 2,369,006.
As it relates to vaccination against COVID-19, a total of 8,158,815,265 doses have been administered worldwide. (G8)
