AS government intensifies its vaccination drive, 220,997 Guyanese or 45.4% of Guyana’s adult population have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, in making this disclosure during his daily COVID-19 update on Monday, stated that of that number, about 87,919 or18.1% of the adult population have received both doses of the vaccine and are now fully vaccinated.

Region One is leading the vaccination drive as 53.8% of its adult population have received the first dose, Region Two stands at 42%, 44.8% in Region Three, 47.2% in Region Four, 48.6% in Region Five, 53% in Region Six, 44.1% in Region Seven, 28.5% in Region Eight, 42.5% in Region Nine and 13.6% in Region Ten.
The health minister noted that while the government is proud, innovative ideas are being crafted to ensure that this number continues to increase.

He noted that the recently instituted drive through vaccination sites that were set up at MovieTowne, Turkeyen and at the Guyana National Stadium, Providence have seen tremendous success over the weekend.

During the two-day drive-through initiative approximately 1,429 persons received their shot at the MovieTowne location while an additional 1,350 received theirs at the National Stadium.
“A lot of people would have commented on the efficiency, the way they were able to come and get their vaccines quite quickly. I think a lot of people enjoyed that so we are going to examine it and we are going to continue to do a number of these exercises. We are going to be consulting communities to see where we can ideally place them. So, in Region Four we are already looking at a couple of other sites that we think would benefit some of the other communities in Region Four,” said Dr. Anthony.

He stated that in addition to Region Four, the ministry intends to have this initiative extended to other regions beginning with Regions Two, Three and Six. He noted that the ministry is currently in the assessment stage to identify possible areas for the execution of such an initiative.
Minister Anthony noted that the recent floods across the country have slowed down the vaccination initiative but he emphasised that government intends to see an increase in vaccination across the country as it continues to address the flooding issue.

“I think we are making steady progress. Of course we would love for the numbers to increase but in some of the regions we weren’t able to do much vaccination because of challenges with flooding and so forth but nevertheless we are still keeping the vaccination programme going,” Minister Anthony stated.

Meanwhile, the country is set to receive an additional 38,000 doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine soon. According to the minister, this will significantly boost government’s ability to continue vaccination across the country.