— as 35 new cases recorded
AFTER collectively recording a whopping 134 cases over the past week, Guyana started out the new week by recording another 35 cases on Sunday, to see the country’s cases cross another century, with the total cases to have been recorded in the country now standing at 709.
According to the Ministry of Health’s statistics, as of Sunday, four persons have been moved out of the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU), leaving just three ICU patients; while another 39 persons have recovered from the virus.

To date, a total of 349 persons have recovered from the virus. For last week, a total of 121 persons had recovered. However, the country has recorded yet another COVID-19 related death last Saturday. This brought the total number of deaths, to date, to 23.
The number of persons in institutional isolation has dropped to 59; however, the number of persons in home isolation stands at 275.
The patients in ICU, and in institutional and home isolation represent the country’s active cases. Another 71 persons are in institutional quarantine.
To date, some 6046 persons have been tested for the virus, the positive cases representing 11.7 per cent of those tested.
Earlier this week, the Ministry of Health had moved a number of persons from institutional isolation, to home isolation, in accordance with updated guidelines released by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Though there continues to be a steady rise in the number of COVID-19 cases, and even though the situation is grim, Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, believes that cases have been going “under the radar”.
Many persons have tested positive for the disease in recent times, but a large number of those persons were asymptomatic, meaning they did not show symptoms of the disease.
This discovery has since prompted authorities to distribute more sample kits across the country, especially to regions where the infection rate is high. Most of the cases have so far been recorded in Regions One, Four, Seven and Nine.
However, the actual testing will be done centrally, at the National Reference Laboratory because regional facilities lack the capacity and technical skills needed to get it done.
While government hopes to improve capacity in those regions, the immediate need for sample testing takes precedence, especially with the high number of asymptomatic cases.