–over 191,000 persons get first dose, 12.9 per cent of adult population fully vaccinated

WITH 376 confirmed COVID-19 related deaths and 75 of them occurring just this month, Guyana’s Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, has said swifter immunisation is needed so that the loss of lives could be reduced. The minister, in his daily coronavirus briefing with the Department of Public Information, related that so far, vaccination is the only safe way out of the pandemic, which started more than year ago. “The more people that get vaccinated, then the faster you can prevent the deaths that are currently occurring,” the Health Minister posited.
Dr. Anthony has often said that even though the COVID-19 vaccines do not guard against the coronavirus entirely, it does prevent the experience of serious symptoms, including death. On a global scale, Guyana is one of the few countries that have been fortunate enough to secure vaccines for nationwide immunisation.
“If you have more people getting vaccinated, it would mean that we would reduce the burden of the COVID-19 infection in Guyana, and that is the reason why we have been saying and we have been working to achieve herd immunity,” Dr. Anthony said. Herd immunity refers to the vaccination of large portions of the population.  For Guyana to achieve this, at least 80 per cent of the adult population needs to be vaccinated.

Dr. Anthony had previously indicated that so far, Guyana has not had any reports of fully vaccinated persons becoming sick or dying from the novel coronavirus.
“…persons might (have) died from other things, but not COVID,” Dr. Anthony said. As of Thursday, 191,151 persons received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. This represents 39.3 per cent of the country’s entire adult population. Meanwhile, some 63,610 persons or 12.9 per cent of adult Guyanese have been fully vaccinated.
The ministry’s latest vaccination effort was seen in the hosting of two drive-thru initiatives which was hosted at the National Stadium on Saturday and then again on Wednesday.
“We have seen more than 1,000 persons in that time, even though we had really, really bad weather. At times the tarmac had, let’s say about two inches of water. Nevertheless, I think, people came out in their numbers and at no time did we have any space in between as there was always a constant flow of people and I think that’s good,” Minister Anthony related.
He said that due to the efficacy of the ‘drive-thru’ exercise on the East Bank of Demerara, similar initiatives are expected to be replicated in other regions.
“We were encouraged by the response, and this is something that certainly the team would be reviewing, we probably will have more of these at the stadium. And we will also be working with the different regions to see whether there are possibilities to do similar things in the various regions,” the minister said.