Effective from today, persons travelling to Guyana will no longer have to undergo testing for COVID-19 in order to be allowed entry into the country.
The Ministry of Health yesterday announced the decision via a post on its Facebook page. The post, however, stated that travellers 12 years and older are still required to be fully vaccinated for entry into Guyana.
The decision was made by the Ministry of Health and the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF) based on an analysis conducted by the former.
Director General of the NCTF Colonel Nazrul Hussain yesterday told Stabroek News that the decision was made based on infection rates in the country. He stated that should the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic take a turn for the worse, they will revise the decision.
The move comes on the heels of similar decisions by Canada and the United States. The US on Sunday lifted the requirements for air passengers traveling from a foreign country to the United States to show a negative COVID-19 viral test or documentation of recovery from COVID-19 before they board their flight.
On the sidelines of an event yesterday, Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony explained that with the level of vaccination achieved to date, the ministry felt the country is in a good position to lift the requirement. In the case of immunization for adults 86% have been vaccinated with first dose and 68% are fully vaccinated.
“Having looked at where we are in terms of vaccination, we felt very comfortable that we can now remove the requirement for antigen or PCR testing… we looked at the data, this is our conclusion, that is why we have removed it…,” Anthony said before stressing that the requirement for proof of vaccination remains in place.
In addition, Anthony added that should there be a spike in cases the country has the capacity to treat patients.
“Even if we have people who are positive, we have enough capacity to be able to treat people, whether they are in hospital, because [at] the Ocean View facility we have 198 beds. So, if people get sick, we can deal with any surge and in addition to that at all our regional hospitals we have beds for COVID patients,” Anthony related.
