Record-breaking 779 new COVID-19 cases detected in 24 hours

…as 2 more from Region 6 die

As COVID-19 cases continue to surge in Guyana, the country has seen a record-breaking 779 new infections within a 24-hour period.
This was indicated on the Health Ministry’s updated COVID-19 dashboard for Wednesday. These new infections were detected from some 2600 tests conducted.
The total number of confirmed cases in the country has now jumped to 41,418. Of this, however, only 2516 are currently active cases. These comprise five patients in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and the remaining 2511 persons in isolation – 66 in institutional isolation and the other 2445 in home isolation.
There are also 10 more persons in institutional quarantine.
Meanwhile, the Health Minister also reported on Wednesday that two more persons who tested positive for the novel coronavirus have died.
These latest fatalities have been identified as a 62-year-old female, who was unvaccinated and died on Tuesday, and a 70-year-old male, who was fully vaccinated and died on Monday. They were both residents of Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).
With these, the total number of deaths from the virus in Guyana has increased to 1060. The COVID-19 death toll for the year thus far is six.
On the other hand, some 37,842 persons have recovered from the life-threatening disease to date – 46 more recoveries than the figure reported the previous day.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country, approximately 435,258 persons have been tested so far and of this, some 19,454 males and 21,964 females were found to be positive.
Of the 779 new cases reported on Wednesday, three were from Region One (Barima-Waini); four cases from Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam); 77 from Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara); a whopping 523 cases from Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica); 21 from Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice); 69 cases from East Berbice-Corentyne; 28 more from Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni); 37 cases from Region Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo), and the remaining 17 cases from Region 10 (Upper Demerara- Berbice).
There were no new cases detected in Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) within that 24-hour period.
Just before the New Year weekend, the Health Ministry had observed a rapid rise in COVID-19 cases, leaving officials to suspect that the highly-transmissible Omicron variant has spread to local shores. In fact, since December 28, new infections have jumped from approximately 40 cases to now hundreds on a daily basis.
According to Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony, during Wednesday update, “…as we anticipated with Omicron, what we will see because of its contagiousness, is an increase in cases especially if people are not abiding by the public health measures and that is wearing masks and so forth consistently.”
However, while he noted that Government has the capacity to manage this spike in infections from the Omicron variant, Dr Anthony disclosed that they were also monitoring the detection of another new variant in France.
“With this new variant, it has been recently sequenced in France, and they have found that it differs from other existing variants,” he explained.
According to reports, this new variant has 46 mutations and 37 deletions and was said to be brought to France by someone from Cameroon.
The Health Minister said, “They think that this particular variant is going to behave differently… Right now, in the part of France where they initially discovered it, there were twelve patients now. They estimate close to 955 patients…and they are also seeing in that region, a higher amount of hospitalisation, but all these things, they have to investigate them more thoroughly to see whether it’s directly linked with this new variant that they have discovered, so a lot still has to be done. A lot of information is not known, this is relatively new, so as it’s investigated then we’ll know more.”
Against this backdrop, health authorities are encouraging persons to take necessary precautions to prevent contracting the virus including getting vaccinated and for those eligible, getting their booster shots.
So far, some 412,288 or 80.4 per cent of adults have received a first dose of a COVID vaccine, of which 297,286 or 58 per cent are fully vaccinated.
For children 12 to 17, some 30,580 or 41.9 per cent have received a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine while 21,833 or 29.9 per cent are fully inoculated.
In terms of booster doses, approximately 13,234 persons have received their jabs thus far.
Meanwhile, persons are also urged to continue observing all COVID-19 preventative measures, particularly masking in public, social distancing and frequent hand washing and sanitising.
Government has since extended the COVID-19 Emergency Measures and Guidelines for another month, until the end of January 2022. These include vaccination requirements to access any public building such as restaurants, places of worship, and schools as well as Government buildings. There is also a midnight to 04:00h curfew in place. (G8)