Spike in Covid-19 cases reported by Health Minister

Dr. Frank Anthony, Health Minister, has reported an increase in the number of Covid 19 cases in
Guyana, stressing that the spike started at the end of December.
In his first Covid-19 update for the year, the minister disclosed that, “On the 28 th  of December
we saw 32 cases, by the 29 th  of December, that went up to 87 cases, and on the 30 th  that jumped
to 161 and by the 31 st  of December that went up to 182, so we started closing the end of the year
with cases going up”. He continued, “On the 1 st  of January, we saw that went up to 209, then
yesterday it was 284, so there is an upward trend in these cases.”
The health minister noted over the last 24 hours, there were 98 new cases out of 1204 tests that
were done. “Relatively low numbers of tests, but the positive cases remain relatively high to the
tests that were done,” he explained. He said that currently, there are 1396 active cases and where
there is an increase in all regions, some regions stand out like Region Three with 112 cases,
Region Four with 846 cases, and Region Six with 236 cases. Dr. Anthony noted that thus far, 40
persons are currently hospitalised with Covid-19 with 20 at the Ocean View facility.  He said six
of those are in the ICU, while two are below the age of 18 years. Minister Anthony noted that
while no case of Omicron has thus far been confirmed in Guyana, he firmly believes that the
variant may be present here.
“We suspect that we might have (the) omicron variant that is in circulation in Guyana because,
based on these numbers we know that in other countries with omicron it’s highly contagious, so
the numbers would keep multiplying every two to four days, you’ll have an increase in these
numbers, and so with the way that this has rapidly progressed over the last couple of days we
suspect that from an epidemiological point of view, that we might have omicron that is in
circulation here,” Minister Anthony said.

The health minister is therefore appealing to the public to continue to practice the safety
measures that have been put in place to guard against infection of the respiratory illness. “We
need to be extra vigilant, the same public health measures that we have been talking about… we
have to practice them, they are not going to protect you if you are not practicing them,” he urged.
The minister have been appealing to persons to wear procedural or surgical masks or N95 masks,
which have several layers of protection, and offers better protection than the cloth masks. “In a
lot of instances people have stopped doing some of these things and because we have become
complacent, we are going to have challenges, so I really want to appeal to persons to go back to
those tested methods, of sanitising, keeping your distance, and wearing your mask,” Minister
Anthony urged.
Dr. Anthony is also encouraging persons to get vaccinated or booster shots for protection. The
health minister stressed that based on trends in other countries, while there are lots of cases,
hospitalisation is less, and even when there is hospitalisation, the duration of stay is shorter.
However, he noted that the local health system is prepared if that trend changes here. “We have
prepared our health system, since last year. We started to do so every regional hospital, we have
beds that are set aside for Covid-19 patients, we put ventilators there, have special beds, put

monitors in these hospitals, we have trained the doctors and nurses to manage these patients, so if
we do have surges in these regions, we feel we have the capacity in these regions to manage,” the
minister declared.
Additionally, the ministry has also ensured that there is an adequate supply of oxygen in all the
regions and also antiretrovirals that work against the Covid-19 virus. Dr. Anthony disclosed that
if things get ‘out of hand’ then additional measures will be put in place, but at this time it is not
anticipated. The minister added that his ministry will also continue sending samples to the
relevant labs, for variant testing.