‘Pandemic among the unvaccinated’ – Dr. Anthony urges vaccination as herd immunity remains priority

With just about 26.5% of Guyanese fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 and with the rise of new deadlier strains of the virus, Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony has supported the notion that the pandemic is now among those unvaccinated citizens.

He made the comment during his daily COVID-19 update on Tuesday amid a call for more persons to be vaccinated in a push for the government to achieve herd immunity.

The Health Minister believes vaccination is more important now with an increase in the number of people infected with the Delta variant.

“It’s now a pandemic among the non-vaccinated, meaning that if you haven’t received your vaccines as yet, you are at a higher risk of getting a severe form of the disease and even dying from COVID, which can be prevented. And it can be prevented by just taking the vaccines.”

Thus far only 128, 847 people have received both does of one of the vaccines and 243, 540 have received the first dose, which equates to 50% of the adult population.

Dr. Anthony reminded that to get to herd immunity, between 80 – 80 percent of the population must be vaccinated. As such, he noted that Guyana is still some distance away from achieving that.

“We have a lot more work to do. However, we want people to understand that these vaccines are safe, they are working, they are helping to prevent deaths, they’re helping to prevent severe disease and they need to come out and protect themselves.

“We also want to encourage persons who would have already received the vaccines, to talk to others who are hesitant about their experience, because most persons who have received the vaccine, they didn’t have a bad experience, they didn’t have any signs or symptoms of anything. Those who probably had a little bit of fever, they’re just minor reactions, so, it’s not as bad as people would imagine,” he said.