PNGSF and Control Centre to review lockdown

THE resumption of competitions affected by the lockdown of sporting venues in the country will be reviewed in the next three weeks with the Papua New Guinea Sports Foundation (PNGSF) liaising with the National Control Centre to resume sports.
Dr Kapua Kapua, the chairman of the foundation’s pandemic management committee, said the directives from the centre to ban public gatherings, including sports, until Oct 30 would be reviewed with competitions encouraged to re-submit their Coronavirus (Covid-19) protocols.
“We know that the measures that came from the controller puts gatherings of no more than 20 people in a place, which is impossible for many sports,” he said.
“We do have sports that can manage those numbers and we will be working with those sports to see if they can continue with their competitions.
“Apart from that, sports should not hang up their boots just yet.
“There are ways to make things happen and a lot of sports have their protocols in place with which they’ve been very compliant.
“We will still be working with them and trying to get them started again.
“We will be talking with the centre and Niupela Pasin team, and if there’s anything that changes the situation in the community that allows to re-open, we will.”
Kapua said permission for training and sporting gatherings of less than 20 people would be up to the Niupela Pasin team which was in charge of granting approval for all competitions in the country.
Meanwhile, foundation executive director Albert Veratau said the decision to halt all competitions was not “about having Covid-19 protocols but rather addressing the aggressive spread of the Delta variant in communities”.