COVID-19 cases on the rise in GT, East Bank, East Coast

The Minister of Health, Dr Frank Anthony, on Wednesday revealed that Guyana continues to see an increase in hospitalisation for positive COVID-19 patients with more severe symptoms of the virus.

Currently, there are 74 patients who are hospitalised across the country; there are nine patients at the West Demerara Regional Hospital in Region Three, while both the New Amsterdam Hospital in Region Six and the Linden Hospital in Region Ten, have three patients each.

“The rest of persons are in the Ocean View Facility; of those who are at Ocean View, we have 15 patients that are in the ICU and they are receiving treatment, those patients we have to assist them with breathing,” Dr Anthony revealed during his daily COVID-19 briefing on Wednesday.

Dr Anthony said that Region Four, which was once the epicenter for the pandemic last year, continues to record the highest number of infections. Of the 88 new infections recorded on Tuesday, Region Four accounted for 47.

On the East Bank of Demerara (EBD), there has been a rise in the number of cases in Diamond, Herstelling and Eccles. For Georgetown, the ministry is seeing more cases in Kitty, Campbellville and South Ruimveldt. The areas of concern on the East Coast Demerara (ECD) are Lusignan and Good Hope.

Dr Anthony explained that these areas have in excess of 10 to 15 cases.

“We have also seen an increase in hospitalisation and I am sure that everybody has seen that we are also getting more deaths because the people who are coming into hospital they are much sicker and we have more difficulties in managing their complications,” Dr Anthony said.

Since the beginning of April, the country has seen an increase of over 900 new infections along with an increase in deaths from COVID-19. In the first 11 days of the month, a total of 24 persons died as Guyana battles a third more deadly wave of the disease.