Guyana has over 1,300 persons in home isolation for COVID-19

Apr 19, 2021 News

Kaieteur News-Guyana now has 1,326 persons in home isolation, which was reflected in the Ministry of Health’s dashboard update yesterday. That high number comes at a time when the country has seen a surge in COVID-19 infections, with a daily average of over 62 cases being recorded.
Guyana had seen a similar situation last September and former Public Health Minister, Volda Lawrence had stated that persons with COVID-19 being isolated within their homes was a major contributing factor to the surge in cases.

Advisor to the Ministry of Health, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy

While speaking to Kaieteur News, she had explained that many of the persons in home isolation live in homes that are not conducive to the standard requirements needed for home isolation. “Most of them don’t have self-contained rooms and other things so they are forced to interact with their household,” Lawrence had said. She even highlighted that adherence to social distancing guidelines is somewhat of a challenge in Guyana as many persons would still visit those in home isolation.
However, yesterday, former Health Minister and current advisor to the Health Ministry, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy, assured that frequent contact is being kept with persons who are in home isolation.
He explained that the Health Emergency Operations Centre (HEOC) is responsible for conducting contact tracing and for persons in home isolation in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), they are “following up”. Notably, Region Four accounts for the majority of COVID-19 infections to date and also account for most of the persons in home isolation.
Dr. Ramsammy went on to say that even though the HEOC focuses on Region Four, it also collaborates with Regional Health Officers in other regions to monitor those in home isolation.
This publication understands that in every region, there are institutional isolation facilities and medical personnel attached to the Health Ministry checking to ensure these persons are home. These check-ups are ideally supposed to be done once a day, but the frequency may differ depending on the region and its number of COVID-19 cases.
Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony had warned that any person confined to home isolation that is found outside of their home or mingling with persons will be taken into institutional isolation, as it would allow for 24-hour monitoring of and curb further spread of the virus.

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