Symptomatic persons opting not to get tested for COVID-19; authorities concerned

…6 cases recorded in 24h, 2 in ICU

Even when presented with signs and symptoms of the COVID-19, persons are choosing not to get tested for the virus. This has created a blurred picture on the gravity of infection spread in the country.
Active cases account for 486 of the total coronavirus infections recorded to date. During the COVID-19 update on Monday, Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony pointed out that there continues to be an underestimate of infections.
This is linked to lowered daily testing because persons are not presenting themselves to be swabbed while others are not reporting their positive status to the Ministry.
“People are having signs and symptoms of COVID because they’re not testing. Even when some of them do self-testing, they’re not reporting it. We don’t have a very accurate picture of how many persons might have tested positive.”
In Guyana, six new positives were reported on Monday. Confirmed cases are pegged at 70,815 – comprising of 32,449 males and 38,366 females.
There are 15 hospitalised cases, inclusive of two persons in the Intensive Care Unit. The dashboard shows 13 persons in institutional isolation, 360 in home isolation and three in institutional quarantine. On the other hand, 69,162 persons have recovered completely.
Deaths have remained at 1278. To date, Guyana has processed 685,138 tests for COVID.
A breakdown of active infections reflects two in Region Two, 15 in Region Two, 81 in Region Three, 187 in Region Four, 18 in Region Five, 34 in Region Six, 26 in Region Seven, five in Region Eight, nine in Region Nine and nine in Region 10.
“COVID does not exempt anyone. If you’re not wearing a mask and you’re around somebody that is positive for COVID, you are going to get infected. The thing is that different individuals would react differently to the virus,” warned the Health Minister.

Vaccination
Vaccination figures show that so far, 445,755 or 86.9 per cent of adults have taken a first dose, while some 345,481 or 67.3 per cent of persons are fully vaccinated.
For adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17, 35,552 first doses or 48.7 per cent and 26,049 or 35.7 per cent second doses have been administered.
Vaccination for children in the five to 11 category shows 7681 first doses or 7.5 per cent. Only 2818 or 2.8 per cent have returned for their second shot. In addition, 72,144 persons have returned for their booster shots thus far.
There is an uptake of 1384 booster doses in Region One, 3232 in Region Two, 9702 in Region Three, 36,098 in Region Four, 4252 in Region Five, 11,552 in Region Six, 955 in Region Seven, 1066 in Region Eight, 3039 in Region Nine and 863 in Region 10.
There are fixed vaccination sites across the country where both paediatric and adult doses are being administered. With the impending reopening of schools in a few weeks, the Health Minister is advising parents to get their children immunised.
“With the Ministry of Education, we have been working with them to see which schools might be ready. The Ministry, when school is in session, has been sending out letters to the parents to say that we are doing a vaccination drive. The parent would have to send back a consent form, authorising that their child take the vaccine,” Dr Anthony added.
In the Region of the Americas, that is, Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has increased to 173 million while the death toll in the region has gone up to 2.9 million.
Globally, there were 590 million confirmed positives with 6.4 million deaths.
If anyone is displaying any of the symptoms associated with COVID-19 or needs any additional information, they are asked to contact the COVID-19 Hotline 231-1166, 226-7480 or 624-6674 immediately or visit www.health.gov.gy. (G12)