Guyana’s COVID-19 death toll rises to 7

…as Linden visually-impaired man succumbs

A 49-year-old man died from complications caused by the novel coronavirus on Saturday evening – bringing Guyana’s COVID-19 death toll up to seven.
Caretaker Public Health Minister, Volda Lawrence confirmed this, according to a social media post by the Department of Public Information (DPI) late Saturday evening.
The visually impaired man was the first person to contract the virus in Linden, Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice). He recently accommodated several guests from overseas. It is suspected that one of the visitors infected him.
He was a patient in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) which is located at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
Earlier on Saturday, the Public Health Ministry, in its daily update, had indicated that there were five persons in the dedicated COVID-19 ICU.
Guyana’s last coronavirus death was recorded on April 7, when former army Colonel, John Percy Leon Lewis, died. The 77-year-old man was first admitted at a private hospital and after showing suspected signs of the deadly virus, he was referred to the GPHC and admitted in the dedicated ICU where he succumbed.
The country’s first COVID-19 case was recorded on March 11 following the death of a 52-year-old woman, who died days after returning from New York. She is considered an imported case and is listed as ‘patient zero’.
There are now 63 confirmed positive cases in Guyana, four of which are imported and the other 59 were locally transmitted.
On Saturday, the Ministry said there were no new cases in the 24 hours since its last update on Friday. This is despite the country recording its second-largest increase of COVID-19 cases in the week, as there were 18 new cases confirmed.
Nevertheless, according to the Public Health Ministry on Saturday, there are now 14 persons in institutional quarantine while 48 persons remain in isolation.
The total number of persons tested since February 26 has gone up to 305, with 242 being negative results.
Meanwhile, nine persons have recovered from the life-threatening disease thus far. At least five of these recovered persons are relatives of patient zero, who were placed in isolation and treated after also testing positive for the deadly virus.
During her update on Friday, Minister Lawrence had revealed that Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) continues to record most of the confirmed cases with 87.7 per cent – most of which is from Georgetown. It was noted too that the 30-49 age group accounts for the highest number of positive cases, with a 4:1 ratio of males to females.
Pointing to the fact that Guyana’s COVID-19 numbers are climbing rapidly, the Minister implored persons to adhere to the curfew and restrictions put in place to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Only Friday, Country Representative of the Pan America Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO), Dr William Adu-Krow warned Guyana against lifting the emergency measures too soon, noting that it could result in an exponential spike in the number of cases here.
In fact, he noted that if the measures are lifted as scheduled, then by mid-May there could be as much as 5000 cases in the country.
Last month, PAHO/WHO had projected that Guyana would record some 20,000 COVID-19 cases. But the country representative explained that this projection was in the event that the country did nothing to curb the spread.
He noted that the implementation of the curfews and restrictions has saved some 240 persons from contracting the virus and at least 25 deaths were prevented. It was projected that by April 15, there would have been 295 recorded.
To this end, Dr Adu-Krow contended that the enforcement of these curfews and restrictions should continue in order to limit the spread of the virus. He added that given the fact that Guyana’s measures are not as stringent as other countries, there needs to be better policing of the curfews and restrictions to ensure compliance by the public.