A patient has died on Wednesday morning from suspected pneumonia at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), resulting in a semi lockdown to the GPHC’s Accident and Emergency unit.
According to reports, the woman recently returned from Queens New York; vital information which medical practitioners were unaware of until her relatives arrived at the hospital.
Tests are currently being completed which may take approximately seven hours.
The woman approximately arrived in Guyana four weeks ago, however, Queens’ first case was confirmed on Sunday.
The Mayor of Queens, Bill de Blasio, said that the man contracted pneumonia as a symptom of the new coronavirus.
Centre for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States has declared 938 cases with 29 deaths. 92 cases are travel related, 75 cases are from person to person while 771 are under investigation.
Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a previous press conference that the coronavirus can be controlled.
“Now that the virus has a foothold in so many countries, the threat of a pandemic has become very real. But it would be the first pandemic in history that could be controlled,” Dr. Ghebreyesus said.
Public Health Minister, Volda Lawrence has cautioned Guyana to remain calm as the results would be expected later this afternoon.
While many epidemiologists around the world over the weeks warned that the coronavirus qualifies to be of more than epidemic status, only on Wednesday, after more than 100 countries have become infected, the WHO officials confirmed COVID-19 as a pandemic.
Data include both confirmed and presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 reported to CDC or tested at CDC since January 21, 2020, with the exception of testing results for persons repatriated to the United States from Wuhan, China and Japan. State and local public health departments are now testing and publicly reporting their cases. In the event of a discrepancy between CDC cases and cases reported by state and local public health officials, data reported by states should be considered the most up to date.
