Saying there is a high possibility that COVID-19 variants are already in Guyana, Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony on Friday argued that even with confirmation the preventative measures to be adopted wouldn’t change as persons would still have to continue wearing masks and social distancing to avoid getting infected.
However, Anthony said confirming the presence of COVID-19 variants in Guyana is not a priority as this will make no difference in preventing transmission and treating infected patients.
“Right now sending samples for [gene] sequencing wouldn’t make much of difference in terms of the way we are treating patients… We would try to [send samples for gene sequencing] but again it is not a priority because we are assuming that all the different strains are circulating,” Anthony said during the daily COVID-19 update.
He pointed out that there are daily travels between Guyana and the United States, where the Delta variant is dominant, so there is a high possibility that variants are in Guyana. He added that the presence of the variants will also change the clinical picture of the COVID-19 situation in the country and there is evidence that this has occurred as there have been increases in deaths and the number of people hospitalised.
Reuters on Friday reported leading American infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci as saying that the Delta variant, which is significantly more contagious than the original variant of COVID-19, has been detected around 100 countries globally and is now the dominant variant worldwide.
Noting that persons with underlying health conditions are going to be more severely affected by the circulating variants, Anthony disclosed that all of the persons who recently died from COVID-19 had underling health conditions and were not fully vaccinated against the virus.
In January, Anthony said, ten samples were sent to the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) to be tested for COVID-19 variants. According to him, no variants were detected in the samples that were sent but in light of the changing picture of COVID-19 here the ministry is putting systems in place to have more samples sent to CARPHA and other institutions to confirm whether there are variants in Guyana.
Meanwhile, Anthony said that as of Thursday, 241,680 persons have received a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and this accounts for 49.6% of the adult population, while 126,620 persons have received both doses, accounting for 26% of the adult population.
He said that over 67% of the 60 years and older population has been fully vaccinated, while only 43% of adults between the ages of 18 and 30 have received both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine. Noting that vaccination is playing an important role in preventing severe COVID-19 vaccine, the minister repeated calls for persons to get vaccinated.
