Five more, including 3-year-old boy, die with COVID

-1,065 new cases recorded

The Ministry of Health has confirmed five more COVID-19 fatalities, including a three-year-old boy, as well as over 1,000 new infections.

The Health Ministry in a statement on Saturday reported that the child, of Region Four, along with a 58-year-old man, also of Region Four, a 48-year-old man of Region Two, a 74-year-old woman, also of Region Two, and a 61-year-old man, of Region Three, died between January 9, 2022 and January 15, 2022.

The deaths bring the total number of Guyana’s confirmed COVID-19 fatalities to 1086.

In addition, a total of 1,065 new cases were confirmed by the ministry after 3,279 more tests were done, in keeping with the recent spike in infections seen over the past two weeks. The rise in cases is suspected to be linked to the extremely contagious Omicron variant of the virus, although Guyana is yet to officially confirm its presence here. Up to last week, Health Minister Frank Anthony said samples were to be sent for testing to determine whether the variant is here.

The new cases increased the country’s total number of confirmed cases here to date to 50,121.

Region Four recorded the highest number of new cases at 619.

The updated COVID-19 dashboard also showed 15 persons in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 9,548 persons in home isolation, 170 persons in institutional isolation and 5 persons in institutional quarantine.