Latest COVID-19 victim tested positive after admitted to GPHC

The family of Guyana’s latest COVID-19 victim who died at the Georgetown Hospital on Tuesday is unclear as to how he contracted the disease since he lived alone at Beterverwagting on the East Coast of Demerara.

“I have no idea, none at all and my brother and I don’t live in the same house, he lived alone,” his sister Paulette Garnett told the News Room on Wednesday.

Seventy-nine-year-old Norbert Grant left home on July 9 to visit the Davis Memorial Hospital after he complained of chest and back pains.

Grant was treated at the private hospital and sent away but after his condition did not improve, the father of three was taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital on July 18 where he was admitted. A few days later the family was informed that he tested positive for COVID-19.

The family never saw him again.

“He had pains in his stomach and his back and that is what we knew he went to the hospital for,” the sister said.

Grant died around midday Tuesday in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit. The News Room understands that Grant had gastrointestinal bleeding.

He was recorded as the country’s 22^nd COVID-19 death.

Two days prior to Grant’s death, a 34-year-old East Bank of Demerara man also died from COVID-19. Doodkumar Sookraj was registered as Guyana’s 21st COVID-19 death; he passed away on Thursday, July 30 but the information was only released the media on August 02.

Guyana on August 04, continued to see a steady increase in positive cases. A total of 497 cases were recorded yesterday.