To broaden the reach of COVID-19 vaccines for the elderly population, health teams are now reaching out to geriatric homes in order to deliver the doses.
On Thursday, four elderly homes within Georgetown were visited and the vaccines delivered to persons residing in those facilities. According to Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony, this will continue in the coming days.
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony
“We had done for homes of the elderly in Georgetown and those remaining ones we will be going within the next couple of days. Again, the response was good and everyone that we approached to take the vaccines, they did. So, we’re very happy with the response,” he informed.
Government has established four vaccination sites in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) where persons can get their shots; the Health Ministry’s compound at Brickdam; the Georgetown Public Hospital; Enmore Polyclinic, East Coast Demerara and; Diamond on the East Bank of Demerara.
Elderly persons – aged 60 and above – started to receive their vaccines last Wednesday, having recognised from the country’s data that older persons are more at risk for contracting the novel virus.
Dr Anthony had related that many of the deaths reported in Guyana were persons within the elderly group. With immunisation in the form of the vaccine, protection will be offered from the worse form of the virus.
Concurrently, healthcare workers within the public and private sectors are being immunised if they voluntarily decide to take the jabs. Doses have been set aside to cover the 12,000 workers who stand to benefit. In the coming week, parliamentarians are also expected to get their shots.
New cases
However, with 76 new cases of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) on Friday, Guyana’s figures have raised to a startling 9069.
Statistics issued by the Health Ministry’s revealed that the death toll remains at 206. A gender breakdown shows that 4670 males and 4399 females have been infected thus far.
With respect to the new cases, six persons remain in the designated Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Meanwhile, 30 persons are in institutional isolation, 12 in institutional quarantine and 562 in home isolation. The total recovered cases to date amount to 8265.
A further dissection showed that one new case was detected in Region One (Barima-Waini); two in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam); eight in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara); 40 in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica); eight in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), one in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni); seven in Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and three in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).
The other regional figures remain the same with 478 in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) and 246 in Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni).
Meanwhile, there has been a rise in new cases within the La Parfaite Harmonie community, West Bank Demerara (WBD). According to the Coordinator of the Region Three Task Force, Halim Khan, there is enforcement to protect persons but it becomes challenging when people leave the region for work.
“Most of those persons working in Region Four. In Region Three, we’re enforcing the measures. The Police have also been doing the enforcement. We’d like everybody to follow suit that arrangement. At Vreed-en-Hoop, we have people running [temperature] tests for everybody at that point because we have thousands of people coming into the region with that water taxi every day,” he told Guyana Times.
