Despite a rising number of COVID-19 cases as well as fatalities in Region Nine, residents of some affect areas are still not adhering to preventative measures as they continue to ignore guidelines issued by relevant authorities.
Presently the region has more than 400 active cases of COVID-19, most of which are distributed among communities in the central Rupununi. As of yesterday, two more person from the region who were infected with the virus had died.
Sixty-eight-year-old Nicholas James and Glenda Bernard from St Ignatius and its satellite village, Kumu, respectively, were identified as the two latest COVID-19 fatalities in the region.
According to the Toshao of St Ignatius, Winston Lorentino, he was very shocked to learn that James had died as when he visited him two days ago, the now-deceased man had told him that he was better and on the road to recovery.
Stabroek News was informed that James also suffered from hypertension.
Bernard was a cook attached to the Lethem Regional Hospital. Prior to contracting COVID-19, she was diagnosed with Dengue Fever. Due to the severity of their symptoms, both were admitted to the Lethem Hospital, where they later died.
Meanwhile, Secretary of the St Ignatius Village Council Amanda Campion revealed that despite the rising number of COVID-19 cases and deaths, persons are still refusing to adhere to the national and village guidelines that have been instituted to stop the spread of the virus.
“People are still breaking the curfew, having secret parties and walking about all over during the nights. So we are having a hard time trying to getting them to adhere to the measures,” she said.
St Ignatius has been seeing a spike in COVID-19 cases, but its co-dependency and proximity to Lethem has made in impossible to implement stringent measures.
More than a week ago, the village council of St Ignatius instituted several measures, including a 6 pm to 6 am curfew on residents in an effort to curb the spread of the virus in the community. “We want the cases to drop. It’s been a month and it continues to rise. Everything was normal before but people are not adhering to protocols, especially the young people,” Lorentino complained.
He noted that many persons are refusing to get vaccinated against the virus because of the conspiracy theories that are circulating about vaccines.
The community has over 48 cases of the virus based on the last report Campion received a few days ago. Dozens of families are in quarantine in the community.
