Faced with reopened schools and an ongoing surge in new COVID-19 cases across the country, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony today urged unvaccinated teachers and students between the ages of 12 and 17-years-old to get vaccinated.

The Minister said parents should be encouraging their children to get vaccinated and teachers should get vaccinated too.

He explained that in many schools, there are teachers who remain unvaccinated and those teachers are putting themselves at risk.

“I think parents need to really encourage their children if they haven’t been vaccinated to really go out and ensure that they are vaccinated. And secondly, teachers also need to be vaccinated”, Anthony said.

The growing number of positive COVID-19 cases across the country has left many parents uneasy with the decision by the Ministry of Education to reopen schools to full-time face-to-face learning.

The Minister of Health said it will be important for the schools to ensure they follow all of the guidelines that have been put in place by the Ministry of Health to curb the spread of the virus. He said it will be up to the Ministry of Education to ensure the guidelines are followed.

Just over 40% of children between the ages of 12 and 17-years-old have received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine against the virus, although the campaign to get them vaccinated has been ongoing for months.

Dr. Anthony said there is lots of work to be done in that area.

Meanwhile, he also indicated today that by the end of this week, the Ministry of Health will send 50 samples from COVID-19 positive persons to Trinidad to be tested for the Omicron variant of the virus.

It was explained that while the lab confirmation is still to come, based on the trend in new cases over the past week, it is clear that the Omicron variant is present in Guyana.

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