— Health Minister urges public to take precautions

Guyana has recorded more than 600 active COVID-19 cases and Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony is urging citizens to take all the necessary precautions to protect themselves, pointing out that this figure may be an underestimation.

The minister made this disclosure during his daily COVID-19 update on Friday where he stated that there are 638 recorded active cases. This, he noted can be an underestimation as not a lot of persons have been testing and reporting.

In giving a breakdown, he indicated that there are three active cases in Region One; 39 in Region Two; 67 in Region Three; 357 in Region Four; 21 in Region Five; 111 in Region Six; four in Region Seven; four in Region Nine and 32 cases in Region 10.

As it relates to hotspot areas, the minister noted that Region Four happens to be the hotspot as there is a higher number of cases in areas such as the East Bank of Demerara, East Coast of Demerara and in Georgetown.
The minister further indicated that there are clusters of active cases but it is difficult to use the recorded cases to say what the exact hotspots are.

“I think a lot of people are not reporting so it’s hard to keep track of what is the prevalence or the incidence of this disease if people don’t report,” he said.

It was against this background that Dr Anthony indicated that persons should continue to take precautions when in an indoor environment. Those precautions, he said include wearing masks and getting their vaccines.
“A lot of people still don’t want to wear masks and if you don’t and you go into an environment where people have the disease and you’re not wearing a mask too then you’re going to get infected,” he added.