More than 220,000 vaccinated

MORE than 220,000 people – 12.2 per cent of the targeted population of 1.87 million – have been fully vaccinated in the country, according to the Coronavirus (Covid-19) National Control Centre (NCC).
The centre said as of Monday, 227,213 people had been fully vaccinated.
The targeted population is 1,869,279. This was revealed as health officials noticed that more people were coming forward to be vaccinated, especially in Port Moresby.
NCC incident manager Dr Malinda Susapu said there was still a high transmission of the Delta variant and the original Covid-19 strain in the country, urging more people to get vaccinated and observe the “Niupela Pasin”. Susapu said the turnaround time for results would depend on the number of samples the Doherty Institute in Melbourne (where genomic sequencing is done) received from Papua New Guinea and Australia.
“Previously, when Australia had a surge, it greatly impacted on the turnaround time for our results, which is between two and three weeks,” she said.
Susapu told The National that because of low testing during the festive period, there was a low number of reported cases.
But she said this did not mean that there was a decrease in Covid-19 cases.
Susapu said that during the festive period, health workers too took their break which meant that there was not enough manpower at the facilities.
Susapu said the scaling down of services in health facilities during the Government shut-down period had also impacted swabbing and testing for the Covid-19.