Covid-19 cases continue to rise, 967 new infections reported

Covid-19 cases continue to surge in Guyana with 967 persons testing positive for the virus within the last 24 hours.

These latest numbers were revealed by Health Minister, Dr. Frank Anthony, M.P., during the daily Covid-19 update on Thursday.

“Over the last 24 hours, we have had 967 new cases from about 3226 tests that were done over the last 24 hours, that would mean now that we have 3481 active cases.”

A breakdown of how the different region being affected shows that Region One has 14, Region Two- 58, Region Three – 285, Region Four- 2289, Region Five – 83, Region Six – 374, Region Seven – 110, Region Eight – 1, Region Nine – 160 and Region 10 has 107 cases.

The minister explained that the number for Region Eight is being reflected as one case because a lot of testing is not being done there.

“We are monitoring these cases. Most of them are mild in a lot of cases. There are people who are asymptomatic, we expect the duration of disease to be a little bit shorter, but we are monitoring them nevertheless,” the minister said.

The Minister noted that persons who test positive need to stay in isolation.

“There are people who have tested positive and sometimes, they still walk around the place which means that they would be in their infectious period and they would be the persons who would be spreading it to others, so if you have been diagnosed as being positive then you should stay home and be in isolation so as to prevent or reduce the spread of omicron. If people don’t behave responsibly, then we are going to see more cases,” Dr Anthony said.

Meanwhile, with regards to concerns raised about children getting sick, the minister noted that local health officials must be contacted in such cases.  

“It might be coincidental that we are now seeing more cases among children and maybe teachers, with fever and these flu-like symptoms. There is also a flu that is going around and we have to differentiate between what might be flu and what might be omicron or the covid-virus so we have to make those distinctions,” Minister Anthony said.

“The medical personnel in every region, they are capable of making that diagnosis and in the case of omicron, we have tests that we can do to confirm whether or not if we suspect that’s its omicron infection,” he added.

The Minister explained that anyone who feels like they have the flu- like symptoms can access services of the medical facilities where doctors there will be able to make that distinction and prescribe the relevant treatment.