Covid positive persons should not go to cricket carnival, Health Minister advises

With Guyana hosting a number of CPL matches this year and the imminent Cricket carnival fast approaching, the Health Minister is imploring persons who are Covid positive to stay at home.

Minister of Health Dr. Frank Anthony notes that Guyana’s upcoming Cricket Carnival will potentially increase the spread of covid-19 as many large and tightly packed crowds are anticipated for both the CPL matches and other Cricket Carnival events.

In light of this, he urges persons who test positive for Covid not to put others at risk.

“Persons who might be experiencing some signs and symptoms, things like fever or body aches and things like that – if you have these types of flu-like symptoms it’s advisable to get tested for Covid. And if you do have Covid then the better thing is to stay home from going to the cricket.”

The Minister has also advised that persons get boosted for carnival.

He expressed concerns over dwindling vaccination numbers earlier this year but notes that the late night vaccination initiative, which has been going strong for about two weeks now, has led to more persons coming forward to get their shots.

“We’ve seen an increase of 1490 doses. And in the second week we saw 1603 doses so there have been some amount of increase in this regard. Because we’re seeing a positive uptake in the later hours, we are going to extend this programme from Region 4 to Region 6 and see if we’ll have similar results.”

There have been 17 new Covid cases over the past 24 hours.