Despite curfew lift, other protocols still in place – Health Minister

The public is being reminded that despite the removal of the curfew other COVID-19 measures remain in place.

During the Monday’s Covid-19 update, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony noted that persons still need to wear masks, socially distance and follow all other protocols to guard against the disease.

Vendor sanitize customer’s hands while providing service.

“I would urge people, not because we have lifted the curfew that they can return to this level of normalcy. You still have to take the precautions and as we increase the amount of vaccination, getting people boosted and so forth, then we would be able to probably consider removing some of the other public health measures, but we are not there as yet,” Minister Anthony said.

The minister reminded that although the vaccination numbers are gradually increasing, many persons have not yet taken a vaccine and therefore remain vulnerable to the disease.

Guyana is still a far way from returning to normalcy, and the vaccination rates need to improve.

“In countries in Europe and other places where they have started to remove mask wearing and so forth, those countries have very high vaccination rates and it’s not just the first dose, they have persons who have been boosted and their rates are close to 90 per cent of the population being boosted, we are not there as yet,” he noted

The minister noted that the vaccines are available, and people need to make the decision to get inoculated.

There still remains a lag in the vaccination rate, as some 62.8 percent of the population has received the second dose of a vaccine, compared to 83.6 percent who took the first dose.

Sign urging people to social distance

The vaccination uptake among the adolescent population has been especially challenging for the ministry with only 45.4 per cent of persons taking the first dose while taken 32.5 per cent has taken the second dose.

The challenge is largely due to lack of parental consent which is needed for this age category.  Minister Anthony said efforts to boost the vaccination numbers among teens will be intensified.

“We’ll have some special vaccination programmes in schools. We’ll notify the schools before, so that messages could be sent beforehand with messages to the parents and hopefully more of them would consent for their child to get vaccinated in school.”

A curfew was in place in Guyana since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.

The National Covid-19 Task Force announced Friday that the curfew has been lifted.

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