COVID gone wild in Berbice!

Jul 07, 2021 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – Four more deaths yesterday! The COVID-19 coronavirus death toll as at yesterday stood at 482.
Only on Monday, some people were breathing a false sigh of relief when there were two days without any deaths, and only 11 cases. However, that was only because the testing level was low on Monday, 278 tests, when compared to yesterday’s 1,193.
As at last Monday, Region Four remained the Region with the highest number of confirmed positive cases. It was way ahead of any other Region, registering 9,379 confirmed cases.
However, it is not Region Four, which the Government should be worried about. It is Regions Five and Six – West Coast Berbice and the Corentyne.
These two Regions have had the highest rate of growth of coronavirus since January. This represents a reversal of what existed at the commencement of this year.
At the start of the year, Region Five had the lowest number of confirmed cases. It had registered 100 cases at as January 1, which was lower than all the other Regions. So Region Five was then considered, and had been since the outbreak of the pandemic, the Region with the lowest number of cases.
It has now climbed from 10th place to 8th place. Region Five now has more confirmed cases than Region Eight, which is the smallest Region population wise. It also has more cases than Region Two.
But more worrying has been the rate at which the confirmed cases are growing in Region Five. The total number of new cases has increased since January, the highest growth rate in new cases around the country and even higher than Region 10 which has the lowest vaccination rate.
Region Six has not fared better. It was in 7th place in January in terms of infections, which means that six other Regions had a higher incidence of the disease.
Since January, the number of confirmed cases in Region Six has moved from 304 to 1,600. And this is in less than six months. But even more frightening is that the increase has been 577 percent, the highest rate of increase in the country and even higher than Region Four, which had an increase of 245 percent.
The eastern part of Guyana, Regions Five and Six, are therefore the most worrying COVID-19 hot spots. The authorities need to be worried since these cases could hardly have been imported from Suriname – the ferry service had been closed for most of the year.
So what is responsible for this massive growth in cases in Regions Five and Six? It could well be that this is due to greater infections among the younger population who have dropped their guard.
As this column has pointed out there is a lot of activity – liming and socialising – taking place after working hours. People in the villages are visiting one another and meeting at roadside corners and having a chat or meeting at open-air bars and having a drink. And this can be contributing to the large increase in cases in those two Regions which prior to January had a fair record of controlling the pandemic.
There is also the possibility that most of the new cases were imported. The airports have been reopened and persons have been coming in, many are visiting in the rural areas and they can be bringing the virus with them. But in the absence of evidence to establish this, it can be highly probable that the increases in cases in Regions Five and Six are due to increased social contact by members of the population of these two Regions.
One of the problems is that there have been no Region-specific emergency measures tabulated. The same regulations apply across all Regions and this is a major humbug to helping to reduce the incidence of the virus’s spread in Regions Five and Six.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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