Guyanese urged to get vaccinated, boosted as country braces for BA.2 wave

Cases of the novel coronavirus have been significantly decreased since the spike that occurred earlier this year due to the Omicron variant.

With fewer new infections and less hospitalisations being recorded, the Guyana Government has removed most of the restrictions that were put in place to protect the population against the spread of the virus. These include the removal of the mandatory mask-wearing policy and vaccination requirements.
This is the path taken by many countries around the world.
However, owing to the BA.2 variant, a sublineage of the Omicron variant, COVID-19 cases are surging again in many jurisdictions, the United States and Europe included.
Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony has already predicted that it is only a matter of time before Guyana is hit by this new wave of infections, and as such, he is encouraging citizens to be prepared by ensuring their immunity levels are high.
“Around the world, they had similar things: they had a wave of BA.1, and now, in some parts of the world, they’ve gone into a wave of BA.2… So, I think eventually we are going to see BA.2 coming to Guyana, because we’re so interconnected,” Dr Anthony explained. “BA.2 might be slightly more transmissible, [but] the clinical outcome does not differ from BA.1; so, we can expect a milder version in most cases, where the clinical presentation would be more of an upper respiratory track-type of infection,” he explained.
“Now, if people are vaccinated and boosted, then they would have a milder form of the disease, especially those persons who are older and who would have various comorbidities… I think for them it’s very important that you get boosted,” he added.
To date, 438,714 persons, or 85.5% of the adult population, have received a first dose of a COVID vaccine, while 337,660 persons, or 65.8% of that population, are inoculated with two doses.
For the 12-to-17 age category, 34,358 persons, or 47.1% of that demographic, are fully vaccinated, while 25,094 persons, or 34.4% of that demographic, have received two jabs. Booster uptake stands at 59,585 doses.
“If these numbers remain as low as (they are), and we have a BA.2 wave, then I think a lot of older people and people with comorbidities can actually get sick,” Dr Anthony has emphasised, even as he lamented that a lot of people are “complacent”.
Based on available data on transmission, severity, reinfection, diagnostics, therapeutics, and impacts of vaccines, a WHO team reinforced in February 2022 that the BA.2 sublineage should continue to be considered a variant of concern, and that it should remain classified as Omicron. The group emphasised that BA.2 should continue to be monitored as a distinct sublineage of Omicron by public health authorities.
In fact, over the past two weeks in the US, BA.2 has doubled in prevalence, and now represents more than 34% of COVID-19 infections that have undergone genetic sequencing, according to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week.

Although cases of the BA.2 are rising in the US, leading public health officials in that country are not expecting another dramatic surge in cases, largely due to the population’s level of immunity, brought on by vaccination and the fierce outbreak of the Omicron wave during the winter.
“The bottom line is we’ll likely see an uptick in cases, as we’ve seen in the European countries, particularly the UK,” White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci had said.
BA.2 now represents about 44% of all positive cases in London as at March 10, according to the UK Health Security Agency.
Guyana’s Health Minister had previously assured that the Government has not dismantled any of its systems, and therefore if/when the new surge hits, the country would be prepared.
“We haven’t dismantled our systems…hospital beds, ICU beds, we have them across the region. So, if people need hospitalisation, the systems are there to take care of them, and we still have our testing capacity… So, the systems are all in place, we haven’t dismantled them,” he has informed.