Govt to engage Suriname on border opening

Only six new cases of COVID-19 were reported on Tuesday and the Health Ministry’s latest dashboard showed that the death toll remains at 135.
There are nine persons in the Intensive Care Unit, with 60 persons in institutional isolation, 743 in home isolation and 43 in institutional quarantine. Guyana has recorded a total of 4524 positives thus far, with 3575 recoveries.

From the positive cases, 2378 men and 2152 women contracted the virus.
A breakdown showed that one new case was detected in Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), one in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), one in Region Five (Demerara-Mahaica), two in Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne) and one in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni).
The number of cases in Regions One (Barima-Waini), Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam), Eight (Potaro-Siparuni), Nine (Upper Takutu-Upper Essequibo) and 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) remained at 773, 91, 143, 376 and 151 respectively.

On Tuesday, Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony announced that Guyana will be collaborating with Suriname in the near future in relation to COVID-19, to examine training and safe reopening of the borders.
“We are going to collaborate with Suriname and we have a working group that has been established between the two Ministries. That working groups is scheduled to meet shortly and among the things that we will be discussing includes training. The other things that we will be looking at includes protocols to allow for safe reopening of or borders,” the Minister indicated.

He also commented on the progress made to obtain a vaccine for COVID-19, amid the recent announcement that one drug has shown 90 per cent effectiveness.
“There is a lot of optimism and if, as the company has said, that it’s efficacious and at 90 per cent, then we can look forward to having a very effective vaccine,” he positioned.

The developers – Pfizer and BioNTech – described this progress as a “great day for science and humanity”, having tested the vaccine on 43,500 people in six countries with no safety concerns raised. The companies plan to apply for emergency approval to use the vaccine by the end of the month.
In the meanwhile, Guyanese are reminded to observe the protocols of the Covid-19 Emergency Measures (No 10), which are in effect until November 31, 2020. This order emphasises, among other things, the need for correct and consistent use of a face mask when leaving home; the importance of maintaining the six feet physical distance from others; and the need for good hand hygiene to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.