Fifteen persons have now recovered from the Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in Guyana, according to the Ministry of Public Health, which says the number of positive cases has not increased since Saturday.
This announcement was made yesterday during the Ministry of Public Health’s daily COVID-19 update. De facto Public Health Minister Volda Lawrence stated that three more persons have recovered from the virus, bringing the total number of recovered patients to 15, while adding that there were no new positive confirmed cases since the 74th was recorded last Saturday. She added that nine more persons were tested for the virus, bringing the total number of persons tested to 464.
Additionally it was stated that five persons remain in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit, while some 51 persons are in institutional isolation and 24 in institutional quarantine. The number of deaths as a result of the virus remains at 8.
The eighth COVID-19 fatality was identified as Lennox Williams, 45 years old who passed away on April 24 at approximately 2.45 pm. Williams was an Intensive Care Unit patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and had suffered from other complications, DPI said.
The minister reiterated that a mobile sample collection unit was on Monday launched at the East La Penitence Health Centre along with COVID-19 facilities at Herstelling, on the East Bank of Demerara and Paradise, on the East Coast of Demerara.
Despite there being no increase in the number of positive confirmed cases since Saturday, Guyana’s case chart has in the past peaked on a number occasions after no new cases were recorded for days.
Against this background, Chairman of the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF) Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, writing in his “My Turn” column in the Guyana Chronicle last Sunday, stated that there must now be a review of all the measures put in place to combat the spread of COVID-19 in Guyana.
Nagamootoo, in the column, observed: “In Guyana, there must be some cause to worry that, from the trend, a spike in the number of confirmed cases, or even persons dying, appears to be imminent”.
He referenced Jamaica as an example of a country that seems to have been flattening its curve based on the measures put in place more specifically the closure of their borders and airspace. Meanwhile, he noted that it is now time for current measures in place to be seriously, non-emotively reviewed as he mentioned that during this time re-opening the airspace to passenger flights should be based on a balance between the right of citizens to return to Guyana and the concern for resident Guyanese to be protected from imported cases of COVID-19, while also considering how it fits within Guyana’s capacity to test, quarantine and treat persons.
