Almost 50% of Guyana’s recorded COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic even as Guyana’s effective reproductive rate as it relates to the spread of the virus has increased.
This is according to Pan American Health Orga-nization/ World Health Organization Representa-tive to Guyana, Dr William Adu-Krow, who in an interview with Stabroek News, disclosed that 48% of the COVID-19 cases recorded in Guyana since March are asymptomatic. This factor led to a change in the criteria for testing in the country.
Initially, he said that the global criteria for testing was used, however, after being changed locally based on the percentage of asymptomatic patients, a number of cases were recorded. “We decided that we are going to open up and not go by the global testing criteria but that’s if you were a contact, we will test you without asking you to go into self-quarantine and so that’s why we have the [increased] cases”, he said.
