Fifty-eight new COVID-19 cases were on Friday recorded along with an increase in hospitalisations, according to the health minister.
The new cases reflected on the Ministry of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard has increased Guyana’s total positive COVID-19 infections to 7,528. The cases came as a result of 352 more persons being tested for the virus and which has increased the total number of persons tested in the country to 48,309.
The regional distribution of the new confirmed cases is as follows: one new case each was recorded in regions One and Five, three in Region Three, 46 in Region Four, five in Region Six, and two in Region Ten. As a result there are now 806 active cases in the country, 42 of whom are in institutional isolation while the other 764 are in home isolation. Six persons remain patients at the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit.
There are 13 persons in institutional quarantine while 7 more persons have recovered from the virus, increasing the total number of recovered cases to 6,541.
Meanwhile, during his daily COVID-19 update, health minister, Dr Frank Anthony stated that there has been an increase in hospitalisation of COVID-19 patients. He said yesterday that there were 19 patients in total at the Infectious Disease hospital at Liliendaal and two patients at the Linden Hospital.
Commenting on the high increase in cases for January, he said, “We warned people in December that in January we are going to see a spike if people don’t take precautions in December. Unfortunately a lot of people did not heed our call and we are seeing a spike in cases.”
He went on to reiterate the call for persons to understand their individual responsibilities and adhere to the emergency measures which are designed to curb the spread of the virus. “I hope that people pay attention to what is happening because we can only fight this virus if were all fighting together and each one of us would need to take on responsibilities.”
