60pc of tests return positive: Doc

PORT Moresby General Hospital director of medical service Dr Kone Sobi said, of the 250 Coronavirus (Covid-19) test performed on patients seeking services at hospital last week, 150 were positive.
“That is 60 per cent of the tests returned positive,” he said.
“Many of the staff that were tested positive had mild symptoms and were isolated.”
Sobi said more than 300 Covid-19 tests have been performed at the hospital this year.
“There have been several admissions to the Covid-19 ward over the past week and many of them are with comorbidities such as hypertension, diabetes, kidney disease and cancer,” he said.
“As of today (Friday) there are 23 in-patients at the Covid-19 ward and are all mild to moderate cases. Many of those that were tested have mild symptoms such as fever, coryza, itchy throat and malaise and were advised to isolate at home.
“They are advised to return if symptoms persist or worsened.”
Sobi said there were two deaths this year – first was on Jan 2 and the second last week – both had underlying medical conditions.
He said the hospital was still waiting for the results of samples sent to Australia for genome sequencing, but the nature of the surge had pointed to Omicron and due to its high transmissibility a lot of people would be affected.
He said on Friday the positivity rate was 80 per cent which meant eight out of ten people that were tested for Covid-19 were positive.
He said predictions were made last year that a surge was expected in March/April and from what was seen at the hospital the city was well into the fourth surge.