COVID 19 cases in the country, especially the Omicron variant is expected to surge within this month until March as the National Control Centre awaits the results of COVID samples collected this month and sent to Melbourne, Australia for testing.
Deputy Controller of the National Pandemic Response Dr Esorom Daoni sounded the warning yesterday during the COVID 19 virtual press conference in Port Moresby.
“With low testing rate, low vaccination rate, people not conforming to the COVID protocols, not wearing proper mask and no physical distancing, we are confident that the Omicron variant will become very dominant very soon because of our behaviour,” Dr Daoni said.
“Most of the past surges in the country resulted from major national events and so we are confident that after the Christmas break and the gathering and partying activities, we are expecting a surge between now and March.
“From the samples that we sent in December to Melbourne, we got only one case of Omicron variant and two cases of Delta variant.”
“On Monday this week, we sent 66 samples and we’re expecting the results to be back early next week.”
Dr Daoni said the Omicron variant is highly transmissible and a lot of its patients will require hospital admission.
He said the vulnerable groups are the frontline essential workers, people with comorbidities and old people.
“So, we will be calling up the Provincial Health Authorities next week to see how prepared they are as we head into the next months.”