Negative case turns positive again, number of COVID-19 now 2

The number of COVID-19 cases has increased to two after one of the newly negative cases had reactivated and became positive again. But Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare says there have not been any new cases in the past two weeks.

Speaking in his 2^nd Covid-19 address to the country, Sogavare said: “I am happy to announce, there are NO new additional COVID-19 positive case (s) since my last address. In the past two weeks we temporarily went down to 1 positive case for a few days.”

However, he adds, one of the newly negative cases had reactivated and became positive again, so our official number of COVID-19 cases remain at two.

Sogavare explains that the reactivation is not new.

“Many positive people that had become negative reactivate even up to two months after turning negative. We have already seen this in some of our students that returned from the Philippines.

“This is why our testing regimen for anyone that is positive requires a minimum of 3 consecutive negative tests after a positive test to minimize the risk of discharging a person that could reactivate.

“I commend our testing protocol which ensures we are able to pick up these reactivations before the people who had turned negative are discharged into the community,” he says in his address.

Sogavare applauds the plan to follow-up all the previously positive people for a period of 3 months after they had turned negative – to reduce any chance of reactivation during this period.

He said so far they have now discharged a total of 14 previously positive people from the government-managed facilities.

According to the PM, 10 of the 14 people were due for a review and re-swabbing in the past week.

“I am pleased to advise that 9 of the 10 people had been reviewed and re-swabbed. I am further delighted to inform the public that all 9 swabs had come back negative. The 10^th person is in the province.”

Sogavare states that arrangements had been made for this person’s review and re-swabbing to be done at the province and the swab will be sent to Honiara for the analysis.

All 10 individuals will be followed up for another month to complete the three months’ follow-up period since turning negative.

The PM says four people that were released recently will also be followed up monthly for three months to ensure they also remain negative for the full three months.

News@SBMOnline2021