Over 25 per cent of the population vaccinated

-sport activities could restart when Guyana reaches herd immunity

-Min. Anthony

Guyana has so far immunised over 25 per cent of its adult population against COVID-19 as more persons turn out for their vaccines.

During Wednesday’s COVID-19 update, Minister of Health, Hon. Frank Anthony said almost 3000 persons have been fully vaccinated.

“As of yesterday, we had 128,740 persons who received their first dose of the vaccine across Guyana. We also have 2,941 persons who received their second dose, so they can be considered to be fully immunised.

So, I think we are making progress because this represents about a quarter of our adult population, a little bit more than a quarter of the population,” he said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony assured athletes involved in high intensity training, that the vaccine is safe for them.

“When you get the vaccine, your immune system would be stimulated to produce antibodies to fight off the virus. So, the vaccines do not interfere with any other body functions or other systems in the human body.

What it does is just to stimulate your immune response to viruses, and to protect you. So, if you’re an athlete, it wouldn’t have any adverse effect on your performance as athletes, and therefore, there’s, no reason why high performance or all athletes for that matter, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t take the vaccine.”

The Minister also said the Government would consider permitting sport activities if all the competitors are vaccinated.  However, this would only be possible after Guyana achieves herd immunity.

“We would consider it when we see that we have high amount of vaccination but right now, you still have a lot of people that would need to get a vaccine.

Once we were able to achieve herd immunity, then a number of things would be able to be able to open up not just sports, but a number of other events will be able to open up and that is something that we have to encourage people if we want to open up this society fully, that we have to work to get to herd immunity.”

To achieve herd immunity, close to 500,000 individuals have to be vaccinated.

Meanwhile, the Minister said monitoring of Covid hotspots in Regions Three and Four is ongoing. He urges the public to observe the preventative measures, particularly masking in public, social distancing and frequent hand washing and sanitising. Dr. Anthony is also appealing to the public to capitalise on the opportunity to take the vaccine and inoculate themselves from contracting a severe form of the disease.