Doc: Don’t be fooled by false info

By LULU MARK
THE Coronavirus (Covid-19) situation in Papua New Guinea is tracking towards an unvaccinated pandemic and people should get vaccinated and not be fooled by misinformation on social media, an official says.

National Pandemic Response deputy controller Dr Daoni Esorom said much of the information shared on platforms such as Facebook or WhatsApp were unfiltered, unverified, not researched and false news and urged people to be careful about what they read on social media.
Dr Esorom said the message was clear that Covid-19 vaccines would not prevent one from contracting the virus but it would prevent the severe effects including hospitalisation and death.
“A very important trend we are seeing is that most of the deaths and the people in the intensive care unit (ICU) are not vaccinated,” he said.
“We have too many skeptics in this country so please don’t listen to them.
“Despite what you hear on
social media, please listen to the people who know and deal with patients.
“I’ve had a lot of unpleasant conversations with some of my colleagues in the hospitals and they told me some frightening stories.
“People crying on their death beds to be vaccinated.
“I’m sorry but if you get vaccinated on your death bed you will not survive.
“You cannot be fully vaccinated by a single dose and after being vaccinated, you have to wait for at least two weeks to a month to be considered fully vaccinated.”
Dr Esorom said most Papua New Guineans went to the hospital when they were very sick or about to die praying for miracles.
According to the daily dashboard from the National Control Centre on Monday 69 new cases were recorded bringing the total cases to 33,054 of which 32,343 had recovered, 1,275 were active cases and 436 people died so far.