Results from the Department of Public Health and Social Services' laboratory tests on Wednesday showed 11 new Covid-19 positive cases on Guam, raising alert against complacency as the island slowly reopens the economy and plans its recovery.
According to the Joint Information Center, DPHSS tested 64 individuals on Wednesday with conclusive results. Fifty-three 53 tested negative for SARS-CoV-2.
The latest number was an aberration from the flattening trend in the past few days that yielded test results showing zero to one positive case a day. Details related to the Wednesday's results were not available of this writing.
"To date, there have been 165 cases confirmed through Covid-19 testing provided with five deaths and 125 released from isolation," JIC said.
"Cases are released from isolation under the following conditions: resolution of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and improvement in respiratory symptoms and negative results from two consecutive respiratory specimens collected at least 24 hours apart. Cases that test positive for COVID-19 through follow-up testing return to active isolation. All remaining cases are in isolation. "
Guam remains in PCOR2, which entailed the lifting of some restrictions and opening of many commercial establishments.
On Tuesday, Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero advised the community to continue exercising caution in case a second wave of pandemic occurs.
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“I think we’re better prepared now to handle a second wave, because the first wave we didn’t know what would happen. Now we’ve experienced the first wave, we have history of the first wave, we have actual data of the first wave and so we’ve developed and established our protocols and processes as a result of this evolving crisis,” she said.
“We’ll be better prepared for a second wave, but everything we’re doing now is to prevent a second wave. I don’t believe we’ll be getting a second wave, only because we have community support in what we’re doing. We’ve been successful to date in containing it at a very low rate. Our history has been back to March 15 and the highest amount of infections we’ve had was 25. We’ve managed to decrease that."
The governor said the first wave was learning stage. “I’d probably not do much differently because we’ve already experienced what we’ve gone through,” she said. “We’ve already established really good processes. We’d probably communicate a lot, lot, lot more closely with our federal partners although we’ve been communicating. I’d ask for more CDC to come here.”
