RECENT statistics have shown a general decrease in COVID-19 cases in Guyana, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony reported while providing the daily COVID-19 update on Tuesday.

He said the decreased number of cases are reflected in the hospitalisation rates across the country.

“Because we are getting less cases, we have also noticed that in our hospitalisation rates right now, we have 60 persons in hospitals across the country, 35 of them are at Ocean View with 14 of them in the ICU.

“So, this is a drastic change from what we had a couple weeks ago when we were seeing about 100-120 cases at Ocean View, that is now down to 35. We’ve also had up to 38 persons in the ICU and that has come down to about 14,” Dr. Anthony said.

Of those persons who are hospitalised, three are pregnant women who are being monitored at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).

Dr. Anthony said that those patients have to be monitored, as there could be challenges around the time of delivery.

Further, he said that the downward trend continued with less COVID-19 deaths also being recorded.

“With a decrease in hospitalisation for severe cases, we are also noticing that the death rates are going down and that also is a very important sign. The mortality rate right now is 12.2 per cent, or 12 persons to every 10,000 persons in the population… hopefully, in the next couple of weeks we will see this number go down further and that’s what we are working on right now,” Dr. Anthony said.

He said, however, that there are still some ‘hot spot areas’ countrywide.

“We have noticed a trend where there has been a decline in cases across the country, so right now we have 2,673 active cases and the cases vary by regions, so the regions where I really would consider hot spots are in Region Three and Region Four. We also have in Region Eight and Region 10,” the Health Minister said.

He related that in Region Three, areas like Pouderoyen, Tuschen, Partfaite Harmonie, Parika, Crane, Zeelugt, Cornelia Ida, Vreed-en-Hoop and Hague, have a higher number of cases.

In Region Four, communities like Diamond, Grove, Herstelling, Kitty, Sophia, Campbellville, Cummings lodge, and the East Coast communities of Enterprise, Mon Repos and Triumph, are also considered hot spots.
Mahdia in Region Eight and Wismar, Amelia’s Ward and McKenzie in Region 10 have a higher number of cases than other parts of those regions.

Meanwhile, in terms of vaccination, some 383,013 persons have taken the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, representing 74.7 per cent of the adult population, and 245.932 have taken the second dose, amounting to 47.9 per cent of the adult population.

Dr. Anthony is hopeful that persons who are yet to take the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine do so before they expire at the end of November. (DPI)