BY KHAMA LINCOLN
GIZO BASED ISLES MEDIA FREELANCE REPORTER
GIZO Based Disaster Office, responsible for Western Solomons, cautioned citizens of the Province to continue practicing all COVID 19 safety measure.
Provincial Disaster Officer Danny Ruel said, locations identified for recent lockdown are highly exposed areas in the western province, where obviously, ships with positive COVID-19 crews called into ports where they visited markets, shops and probably have close contact with relatives, friends and others living in the urban areas and communities.
“Those places are highly exposed to possible transmission of COVID 19, he said. So, the cases we detected in the western province are from vessels, the two recent cases are citizens of Noro.” And even the areas in which the crews interacted with people have high risk of transmission.”
“Based on health advices, it is important to lessen our movements, especially the non-essential movements, interactions and contacts.
“The more we isolate ourselves from other people even if we contract the disease, then there will be less chance for it to spread to others.” That’s what people should understand when we talk about restrictions and movements, because of the nature the disease.”
So, it is very important for us to isolate ourselves much longer than the period mandate for quarantine, if we contracted the virus.”
In relation to issue of Landing craft LC Plus One, after spending a week floating at Gizo Harbour, and allowed by authorities to unload fuel drums at the wharf on Saturday, the Disaster officer said, activities of the vessel at Gizo port was carried out under strict supervision of the health team. He said, health teams made sure that crews, and people in the vessel practice all safety measures.
Ruel said, the provincial health team “have limited capacity and will not be able to do wide spread testing, like swabbing.” So, the health team always advised people to practice self-isolation at home, as we don’t have testing kits.”
Six sector committees are in place to align with the government and assisting the people of the Western Province in the fight against the common enemy Corona Virus.
They are, Health Sector Committee, Livelihood Sector Committee, Prevention Sector Committee, Camp Management Committee, Education Sector Committee and Infrastructure Sector Committee.
