Third wave not severe: Manning

THE third wave of the Coronavirus (Covid-19), including its Delta variant, was expected to devastate the country’s health sector and cause a large number of deaths but these forecasts by world agencies have not eventuated, National Pandemic Controller David Manning says.
Manning told The National that while there was no doubt people were getting sick and dying from the Covid-19, it was not in the numbers initially predicted and the third wave appeared to be winding down.
“We know the number of people infected with the Covid-19 is higher than official data, because most of our people live in remote and rural areas and this makes formal tracking difficult,” he said.
“The number of recorded active cases was much higher during the second wave peaking at 9,015 in a single day, but in the third wave, it has peaked at around half of that number at 4,708.”
Manning said comparing the official figures of infections and deaths, between the three waves of the Covid-19 spread, the third wave had not been as severe as predicted.
“So the question is why hasn’t PNG been hit as hard by the third wave like other countries?”
Manning said several factors for the surprising resilience of Papua New Guineans were probably the fact that around a third of the population were under the age of 16, the majority of people lived in rural areas and did their work mostly outdoors, as well as other cultural and geographical factors.
“Another reason is PNG is not befalling the same deadly fate as many other countries could also be because there has been a serious spread and a high rate of recovery,” he said.