30 children among 167 positive COVID-19 cases in St Cuthbert’s Mission

St Cuthbert’s Mission continues to record a large number of COVID-19 cases as authorities are battling to contain the outbreak in the Indigenous community.

From November 9-12, the community, which has a population of some 1,500 persons, has recorded 123 new COVID-19 cases, including 30 children.

Beverly Clenkian, the village Toshao, told the News Room that the youngest patient is a four-year-old, while the other children are between the ages of six and 12.

Clenkian explained that the community began swabbing residents for the disease on November 1, when one person who travelled out of the community was tested positive.

She explained that to date, there are 167 positive cases of which 70 were recorded in the past three days.  The oldest resident who was tested positive is an 87-year-old woman.

The community is currently on a two-week lockdown as the Ministry of Health conducts mass testing.

“Everyone is being tested, some persons do not want to get tested but [they are not given a choice]…all persons are indoors, only the ones who are coming to do testing are out,” Clenkian told the News Room.

During his daily COVID-19 update released by the Department of Public Information (DPI) on Thursday, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony said it is expected that the cases in the community will continue to increase as testing continues.

“It’s quite a large village and they’re spread over a large territory and therefore sometimes trying to monitor everybody can pose a challenge. However, the main entrance into St Cuthbert’s and exits, we have been having a presence there and we have been deterring residents from going out,” he said.

However, Dr Anthony is optimistic that by the end of November, the spread of the disease in the village will be contained.

“So I think in about two weeks [or] three weeks, we should be able to control the amount of cases that we have there and can see a steep decline,” the Minister posited.

The majority of the persons who tested positive are being isolated at home. Guyana has so far recorded 4,618 COVID-19 cases to date.