September has most ‘COVID’ infections, but numbers may be ‘underestimated’- Health Min.

More people have been infected with COVID-19 in the first 19 days of September than any other month, yet the Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony says that low COVID-19 testing in some regions may mean that the numbers reported are lower than the actual number of infections.

The Minister said this on Monday during his daily COVID-19 update. Then, the minister highlighted that there are a number of active cases (that is, people who are currently infected with COVID-19) all across Guyana.

But, he highlighted, “In every region, we have a number of cases, but that varies because some regions are not testing as much as they should.”

The regions that the minister said should be engaging in more COVID-19 tests to ascertain whether people have been infected with the disease include Region One, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine and 10.

To this end, he said: “…they can do much more testing but they are not testing as much so we might see might the numbers in those regions are artificially low.

“It is an underestimate of what is happening in those regions.”

Cognisant of that information, the minister has seemingly suggested that only Regions Two, Three and Four are testing enough people daily to ascertain the presence of the novel coronavirus.

For context, after tallying the number of new infections reported by the Ministry of Health every day for September so far, there have been 4,005 people infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease COVID-19.

Though the month of September has 11 more days remaining, this figure illustrates that September has already become the most infectious month. Previously, May 2021 was the most infectious month with 3,669 people becoming infected in that month.

Importantly, too, September is also the deadliest month of the pandemic since 100 people have died after they were infected with COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony highlighted that there are a number of ‘hotspots’ for COVID-19 infected currently.

These include: Port Kaituma and Mabaruma in Region One (Barima-Waini); Charity in Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam); and Tuschen and Parfaite Harmonie in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara).

Additionally, Diamond, Grove, Eccles, Mon Repos, Haslington, Kitty, Sophia, South Ruimveldt, Campbellville and Cummings Lodge are some of the hotspots in Region Four (Demerara- Mahaica).