-10 persons still in ICU
GUYANA continues to see a climb in the number of Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, with tests over the past 24 hours producing five new cases of the disease.
Health authorities have so far tested 2,889 persons, with 2,611 of those persons proving negative and 278 being positive. The positive cases have since decreased, as 121 persons have recovered from the disease and 15 persons have lost their lives.
There are, however, 152 active cases, of which ten are in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and 142 are in institutional isolation.
According to the existing statistics, Regions One (Barima-Waini), Four (Demerara-Mahaica), and Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) continue to have most of the cases.
Regions One and Seven, in particular, have seen a rapid increase in the number of cases being recorded. Last Thursday, this newspaper reported that COVID-19 claimed the life of Abdool Khan, a miner from Bartica, in Region Seven.
The spike of cases in Regions One and Seven have since seen authorities implementing a lockdown of those areas, with restrictions of travel in and out of the areas at reference.
Health authorities had found that a large number of positive cases in these regions, have no signs and symptoms, so they are what is known as asymptomatic. This means that these persons can transmit the disease, and the infected persons will not even know that they are sick, because there is no sign.
Medical teams were dispatched to Aranka and surrounding mining areas in Region Seven, as well as Moruca in Region One, to conduct mass testing to tackle the sudden spike of COVID-19 cases.
The continuous rise in the amount of cases has seen local authorities creating a special emergency unit to enforce the control measures, and curtail the spread of the disease. Authorities believe that the rise is primarily because sections of the population continue to flout the existing measures, which include a national curfew.
COVID-19 remains a serious issue not just here in Guyana, but globally as well, and, according to global statistics, there are 11.1 million cases of COVID-19, with over 528,000 deaths. And, with no approved treatment or cure, there is no assurance that persons will survive after contracting the disease. In the absence of approved medications, governments and authorities across the world have employed a number of preventive measures to contain the spread of the disease.
