Gizo, Noro & Munda lockdowns postponed

BY BEN BILUA
Gizo

WESTERN Provincial Disaster Operation Committee has postponed the proposed lockdown for Gizo, Noro and Munda.

Chairperson of WPDOC, Jeffrey Wickham said the decision was based on two reasons; first, the outbreak in Shortland Islands and second – lack of manpower.

He said WPDOC’s focus at the moment is on Shortlands as the risk of further transmission is high, so as lack of proper health facilities to care for sick patients will be devastating for peoples.

“It is sad that we have very limited manpower. Our frontline workers have been stretched to their limits but we acknowledged their sacrifices.

“Now, I want to explain why we postpone lockdowns for Gizo, Noro and Munda. Ok, as we know we have very limited man power so we look for the most needed zone for the lockdown – at the moment two communities in Shortland is at high risk so we decided to enforce lockdown for these communities.

“This will enable our front line workers to carry out swabbing and contact tracing. The purpose of lockdown is for swabbing and contact tracing, so, there is no point of a lockdown on Gizo, Munda, Noro and Shortland because our very limited number of frontline workers.

“We will focus on one zone first before moving on to other zones. In doing so we provides our health teams with space and time to do their job,” Wickham explained.

He said new dates for Gizo, Noro and Munda lockdown will be made known any time next week.

Discover more from Theislandsun

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading