Health Min. notes decline in ‘COVID’ infections but says hot spots still exist

Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony on Tuesday drew attention to what he said was a steady decline in the number of new infections of the COVID-19 virus and daily active cases.

Speaking during his daily COVID-19 update, the Health Minister said with a total of 1, 321 active COVID-19 cases throughout Guyana, the trend in recent weeks shows a decline.

With just over 21, 000 cases reported since the first case in Guyana in March 2020, the country had experienced at least two brief periods of surges in cases and deaths.

May 2021 is now the deadliest month and also saw the most infections for a single month with 99 deaths and 3,669 cases. That number dropped in June 2021 with 77 deaths, the second deadliest month, and 3,103 cases.

So far for July, there were 21 deaths and 947 cases.

A total of 56 new cases were recorded on Tuesday over the last 24 hour, Dr Anthony revealed, but notwithstanding this decrease in active cases, he said there are several hot spot areas across the country which health officials continue to monitor.

These include Sister’s Village in Region Three, Sophia in Region Four, New Amsterdam in Region Six, and the Lethem and St. Ignatius areas in Region Nine.

Region Four, being the most populated region, accounts for almost half of the total cases recorded at 9, 580 followed by Region Three. To further reduce these numbers, the government is forging ahead with its vaccination campaign.

To date, a total of 239, 877 persons have received their first dose of one of the three vaccines being administered, representing 79.3% of the adult population.

However, there are just about 120, 914 fully vaccinated persons who have received both doses; this represents 24.8% of the population.