A year ago yesterday, March 28, the CNMI saw its first two cases of COVID-19. Just two days later, one of those two died.<\/p>\n
This year, the CNMI is leading the nation in COVID-19 vaccination rates, with 20% of the population fully vaccinated and with more COVID-19 vaccines on the way, according to Delegate Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Ind-MP).<\/p>\n
As of March 28, the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. reported 26,433 people have already been vaccinated. This includes 15,332 people who have already gotten their first shot and 11,101 who got their second shot and thus completed the vaccine series. <\/p>\n
Sablan said in a Facebook post that 31,155 people in the CNMI could be fully vaccinated by the end of April.<\/p>\n
Within this week, the CNMI will receive 11,700 doses of the Pfizer\/BioBTech COVID-19 vaccine, 5,000 doses of the Moderna Inc. vaccine, and 5,000 doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson\/Janssen vaccine, he added.<\/p>\n
Case No. 147 identified through medical referral<\/strong><\/p>\n Speaking at the governor\u2019s media briefing last March 26, CHCC chief executive officer Esther Mu\u00f1a said that COVID-19 positive case No. 147, which was the CNMI\u2019s first local case of the coronavirus in 204 days, was identified on March 12 through pre-travel testing. Mu\u00f1a said the individual was asymptomatic and was fully vaccinated two months before contracting COVID-19. <\/p>\n Mu\u00f1a said CHCC, the Governor\u2019s COVID-19 Task Force, and contact tracers identified 182 unique persons, which led to the identification of 10 people who were positive for COVID-19. Of the remaining 172, 165 were identified to have \u201csufficient level\u201d of contact, but fortunately, there were no additional cases that were identified.<\/p>\n Mu\u00f1a said the other 10 people who did test positive were symptomatic with the dates ranging from 12 days to one day, with an average of five days before getting laboratory confirmation.<\/p>\n Mu\u00f1a and Villagomez on COVID-19 response<\/strong><\/p>\n Prior to the CNMI seeing its first familial cluster last March 13, Governor\u2019s COVID-19 Task Force chair Warren Villagomez attributed the CNMI\u2019s low infection numbers to the CNMI\u2019s strong leadership, preventive measures, and the cooperation of the community, allowing the CNMI to control the spread of COVID-19.<\/p>\n Villagomez said paper health declaration forms, entry screening process, health questionnaire of potential symptoms (not only for COVID-19 but general illnesses) quarantine and first and fifth-day testing helped identify cases early.<\/p>\n Mu\u00f1a also said the COVID-19 response will help the hospital focus on other health issues in the CNMI. \u201cWith more people vaccinated and more support for the health system, I see us focused on other health issues that\u2019s affecting our community. We need to use a similar mindset in addressing health issues with how we address a COVID-19 case in the community,\u201d said Mu\u00f1a.<\/p>\n Villagomez said the CNMI wouldn\u2019t have been successful in handling the pandemic\u2014with low community transmission\u2014if a strong collaborative effort wasn\u2019t established last year.<\/p>\n \u201cOur response to COVID-19 was successful with Gov. Torres\u2019 leadership\u2026as well as Lt. Gov. [Arnold I. Palacios]. \u2026We meet daily, if not in person then Zoom and we are utilizing every effort of communication network to make sure that we are aligned with each other,\u201d said Villagomez. <\/p>\n He also commended the governor\u2019s authorized representative, Patrick Guerrero, for his assistance in bringing in COVID-19 testing kits, COVID-19 vaccines and refrigerators, and all personal protective equipment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A year ago yesterday, March 28, the CNMI saw its first two cases of COVID-19….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":341132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}