Guyana continues to see low COVID-19 hospitalisation rates

Guyana continues to see a decline in hospitalisation for COVID-19, as it continues its aggressive vaccination campaign.

Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony, while giving the daily Covid-19 update on Tuesday, noted that a total 1,836 active Covid-19 cases have been recorded, of which 58 are hospitalised.

The current occupancy at the Infectious Diseases Hospital is 33, with only nine patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Meanwhile, Minister Anthony noted that the delivery of the oxygen plant which was donated to the facility, has been delayed due to logistical issues.

“The plant is procured and they have it basically to ship, the challenge that you have, you know there is a global problem with shipping and that’s the challenge that they are having, so we don’t have an expected date of arrival yet, but they are working on it, the people who donated it they have been working to get that plant delivered to us.”

The minister noted that there is adequate oxygen at the hospital. He said a local manufacturer has been supplying the facility with oxygen which is also being delivered to every bed.

“It’s also good that we don’t have a lot of patients right now that requires hospitalisation and it comes back to people getting vaccinated, so if more people get vaccinated, I think it would make a big difference in terms of the severity of the disease” Dr. Anthony noted.

While the hospitalisation rate is currently down, Dr. Anthony fears that the low vaccination uptake in some parts of the country could cause an increase in severe forms of the disease.

“What we would probably eventually see, is that in the areas where there are high levels of vaccination, we will see a decline in the cases as we ‘ve been seeing in some of the regions, but in the areas where we have a lot of people still unvaccinated unfortunately, we are going to have more cases and some of these cases are going to be severe and would require hospitalisation” Dr. Anthony noted.

The regions with the lowest vaccination rates are Regions Two, Eight and Ten.

“We would therefore expect that sometimes when we get cases from these regions, we will probably see some of the more severe cases coming out that require hospitalisation, and if people remain unvaccinated, then some of them would die,” the health minister said.

Currently 77.4 percent of the adult population has had the first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine while 52.9 percent have taken both doses.

The Government of Guyana on Monday began offering booster doses to persons above the age of 50, frontline workers and persons over 18 with various comorbidities.