CORONAVIRUS UPDATE by His Excellency President Lionel Aingimea, MP Sunday, 19 June 2022
CORONAVIRUS UPDATE
by
His Excellency President Lionel
Aingimea, MP
Sunday, 19 June 2022
In today's update, His Excellency
President Lionel Aingimea says the number of people with COVID is
rising but none are in a critical state. At the moment we have 156
who are COVID-positive; 101 of them have been placed in isolation
and the rest are isolating at home. Some are isolating in
Ewa, Batisi, Aiwo, Boe, Menen, and Ijuw.
There are only four people in the
negative pressure Acute Care Unit (ACU) at the RON Hospital, and
none of them are in respiratory distress nor are they in a critical
condition needing 24/7 assistance.
The President reiterates that when
COVID-19 was detected in our community on Thursday 16 June, a lot
of people were tested and 49 tested positive on that day. Testing
was done again on Friday 17 June and Saturday 18 June, and more
positive cases came to light.
Our vaccination rate here is very
high. We have over 98 per cent vaccination rate, and we're
expecting more vaccines for the younger population, the paediatric
population to be coming in at the end of this month.
I want to stress the point that the
spread of this virus is dependent on the movement of people. So if
people walk, the virus walks. If people make contact, the virus
makes contact. So it is absolutely of vital importance that if you
leave home you put your mask on, that stops the virus spreading. If
you leave home you make sure you put all the safety COVID practices
of keeping a safe distance, sanitise your hands, ensure that you
have your mask on, those are critically important.
If we isolate at home, and keep our
movements to a minimum the spread of this virus will also be kept
to a minimum.
There will be services that will be
considered essential. But a lot of you will be told to stay at
home, however, this will not affect your salaries. You will still
be paid. It is the commitment of this government to ensure that
everyone still gets paid even though they are considered
non-essential services and they are not coming to work.
But there will be those who will be
considered essential services and they will be expected to come to
work. As an example - the education department. Teachers will not
be coming to work and the majority of office staff in the education
department will not be coming to work. Since this is government pay
week, those responsible for salaries in education will be coming to
work but staff will be allocated scheduled times to work on staff
salaries so that we're ensuring that the safety precautions in
regards to COVID is adhered to.
Other things that will be
considered by your heads of department (HODs) are what are
considered essential services.
Eigigu Supermarket will also be
opening for longer hours and will soon have a hotline for grocery
orders. If you do not want to leave home you can call them and
purchase your food items and they will be delivered to you.
There was some panic buying around
the island and I want to put your hearts and minds at ease that
government will continue to bring in freighters and cargo ships to
ensure that this island is amply supplied as was when COVID was
first declared globally. There was also panic buying then but that
tapered off and soon stopped when people realised that freighters
and ships were still coming in. There is nothing stopping us to
ensure that supplies keep coming to this island.
We have also been told that some
shops have increased the cost of their goods. If you are aware of
any store doing this, please report it to the Treasury Office, they
are managing this.
One shop has been ordered to close
because of unnecessary price inflation of a carton of bottled water
from $14 to $20. Their business operations have since been
suspended by the Justice Department.
Food and supplies will continue to
be brought in. Your government is ready to stand
behind Nauru and continue to supply food and essentials.
There is no need to be anxious and cause unnecessary panic
buying.
We have also spoken to private
businesses to bring in rapid antigen test (RAT) kits for people to
purchase and do your own COVID testing at home. These are approved
Australian standard test kits.
The number of COVID-positive cases
will continue to rise. The reason we place people in isolation in
our facilities or at home, is so we slow down the speed of the
virus spreading in the community. If we stop our movements, then we
also stop or slow the spread of the virus. We cannot stop the
spread if people continue to go against the advice to minimise
movements and other health measures.
It is important that we put our
masks on when we leave home and keep our 1.5 metre distancing and
we sanitise.
Thank you all. God
bless Nauru.