With the relaxation of the COVID-19 restrictions, the Ministry of Health has seen a drop in the number of persons seeking vaccines and booster shots.

But now with another variant of COVID-19 surfacing in some western countries, the Ministry of Health is worried that the new variant could soon reach local shores and start to spread rapidly.

“Scientists have found that it is more transmissible. So we are having a more transmissible variant at a time when a lot of countries have relaxed measures such as masking and therefore you are seeing a lot more people getting infected and some of those persons are ending up in hospital,” Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony said during today’s COVID-19 update.

The Health Minister said persons who are not vaccinated or persons whose vaccines have lost its strength would find it difficult to cope with the new covid variant.

Already, China has put nearly 30 million people from major cities under lockdown as the country has seen a steep rise in new cases from the variant.

“I suspect that eventually as the BA.2 variant circulates in other countries we are going to see similar spikes. We haven’t seen that here in Guyana as yet,” Dr. Anthony noted.

He said fewer people are also now getting tested for the virus. 

“That can be a little problematic because we still need more people to be vaccinated. The first dose for most regions are relatively high, the second dose we still have a challenge and in booster dose, we still have a far way to go so this is something we want to encourage people that even with the lull that we have right now, we should encourage people to be vaccinated,” Dr. Anthony explained.

Over 65% of Guyana’s adult population has been fully vaccinated while 85% of the country has received a first dose shot.

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