No need for lockdown in Bartica – Health Minister

…active cases further decrease, 3 new cases recorded

The Township of Bartica, Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), is considered a COVID-19 hotspot according to the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF), however, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony is of the view that a total lockdown of the town is not warranted at this time.

“We are going to continue to monitor (the cases) and based on the epidemiological findings and so, if we believe there is a necessity to do that (lock down the town), we will do that but at this point, we don’t believe that that is necessary,” the Minister told the Department of Public Information on Tuesday.
The Ministry on Tuesday afternoon announced that Guyana recorded three new cases of the novel coronavirus as of midnight on December 7. This now takes the total number of confirmed cases to 5700.
There are currently 676 active cases with four persons in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit.
Based on the daily dashboard, 2941 males have been tested positive thus far while 2759 females contracted COVID-19. Some 34 persons are in institutional isolation while 39 are in institutional quarantine. 638 persons are isolating at home and 4870 recoveries have been recorded.
To date, 32,397 tests have been conducted.
Minister Anthony added that the Ministry has been conducting more tests and monitoring the cases in Bartica and that is the reason for the increase in numbers. He explained that with Bartica’s peculiar position as one of the gateways to the interior, it puts it at even greater risk when it comes to the spread of COVID-19.
“One of the challenges we have is that Bartica is a community where people of other areas especially mining areas will be transiting through Bartica and therefore, we can expect if they are coming from areas suspected to have COVID they can bring that into the community…outside of that because we recognise that a lot of people are travelling through Bartica, by the end of the week we will be putting in some additional measures with operation COVI-CURB where we will be trying to make sure that persons coming into that area are checked so that we can reduce the incidences of COVID-19 or persons with COVID-19 entering Bartica,” Anthony explained.
He added that the health team in Bartica has been doing a commendable job and that plans are in the pipeline to ramp up testing so that they can get a clearer picture of the situation on the ground. He reminded that most of the recorded instances of COVID-19 in the Township occur in persons who are asymptomatic and urged residents to continue wearing their masks and sanitise as often as possible.
The Minister explained that while national trends may indicate a high recovery rate, the situation on the ground and in the various regions can be starkly different. On that note, he urged continued precautionary measures.
Guyana is one of 92 countries that are part of the global COVAX network, meaning that it stands to benefit from free vaccines for COVID-19.
“For us to move ahead with that process it requires that the Government of Guyana enter agreements with COVAX. They have given us a list of things that we have to go through and we have already signed letters of intent to be part of the facility. We had to sign terms of reference to be part of the facility. This goes across to the board for all countries.
“We completed that letter and sent it off yesterday. We have another one that is coming up which would be for the 14 (of December). Right now we are examining all the issues relating to that. That has to do with indemnification so we are going to examine that and then on the 14th once we don’t have a problem with that, we are going to fill them up and send to COVAX,” he explained. (G2)