485 tested positive for COVID-19 in 24hrs; 113 in EBD communities, 147 in Georgetown

(DPI photo)

A total of 485 persons have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 24hrs moving the active cases in Guyana to 1,824. Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony said, “it’s probably the highest total we’ve had in a day and maybe these numbers would even go further.”

The numbers he said, are not a full picture of the situation since many samples were collected and are being processed. As such, Dr. Anthony noted that this trend is expected to continue as the Omicron variant is “highly contagious” and doubles every four days.

The country’s major health institution, the Georgetown Public Hospital recorded a high number of positive cases among doctors and other staff.

Dr. Anthony said on Tuesday that the Ministry has been constantly monitoring the situation and “we have taken mitigation measures so it has not had a big impact so far on service delivery.” However, he added that “if more and more people get sick well then obviously it’s going to have an impact.”

Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony.

He noted that most of those affected are either asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and are expected to return to work shortly.

On the East Bank of Demerara at Diamond, 43 people are infected, 33 at Providence, 20 in Grove, and 17 at Herstelling.

On the East Coast, 17 infections were recorded in Non-Pariel which recorded the highest on that corridor. In Georgetown 49 cases were recorded in Kitty, Sophia 36, Lodge 35, and La Penitence 27. There are cases in all the wards in the city, the Minister said.

In other Regions, New Amsterdam recorded 66 cases, Lethem 45, Bartica 21 and Wismar 26.

Minister Anthony noted that of the active cases 1,138 are in Region Four, 272 in Region Six, 148 in Region Three; 41 in Region Two; 78 in Region Nine and 74 in Region 10.

There are now 64 persons in hospital with COVID-19.

“…over the last 24 hours I think we had about 10 persons that came into the different hospitals. We currently have 36 persons at the Ocean View hospital, with eight of those persons in the ICU… All of them are receiving oxygen but I think two of them are intubated,” Dr. Anthony said.

The vaccination numbers largely remain the same, but with a slight increase in first dose uptake which now stands at 80.3 % of the adult population while boosters’ uptake has also improved.