Highest number of new covid infections recorded in Guyana for a day

Guyana has hit a record high in the number of Covid -19 infections for one day with 485 new
cases recorded in a day, Dr. Frank Anthony, the Health Minister, revealed on Tuesday.
“In the last 24 hours we had 485 new cases, so our active cases are now 1,824, so that’s a big
jump, it’s probably the highest total we’ve had in a day and maybe these numbers would even go
further,” the minister said. Dr. Anthony pointed out 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. “So, you can see cases are going up around the country, and those regions where we
have low cases, we are awaiting the test results because, we have collected samples but they have
not been processed as yet,” Minister Anthony explained.
The health minister pointed out that this trend is expected to continue as the Omicron variant is
“highly contagious” and doubles every four days or so. He said that on the East Bank of
Demerara at Diamond, 43 people are infected, 33 at Providence, 20 in Grove, and 17 at
Herstelling. While on the East Coast, 17 infections were recorded in Non Pareil, 49 in Kitty,
Sophia 36, Lodge 35, and La Penitence 27. There are cases in all the wards.
Minister Anthony stressed that in other Regions, New Amsterdam recorded 66 cases, Lethem 45,
Bartica 21 and Wismar 26. “Right now, we have 64 persons in hospital, 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 and a few of those
persons are intubated. All of them are receiving oxygen but I think two of them are
intubated,” Dr. Anthony said.
The health minister said that 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. “Boosters have been going up incrementally, so today, we are at
12,306, booster doses but we still have a long way to go because of the persons who would have
received their second dose. This is just a very small portion of that so we still have a very long
way to go in ensuring that more people get their booster doses,” the minister explained.
Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony confirmed that a number of staff from the GPHC have tested positive
for the virus and are being closely monitored. “There are a number of persons who have tested
positive, both doctors and medical staff we have been constantly monitoring and we have taken
mitigation measures so it has not had a big impact so far on service delivery, but if more and
more people get sick well then obviously it’s going to have an impact,” the minister noted.
The health minister added that most of those affected are either asymptomatic or mildly
symptomatic and are expected to return to work shortly.