Mapping Out Spread Of COVID-19 In Makoi Not Easy: Dr Fong

Mapping out the spread of COVID-19 in Makoi is not geographically easy, Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical Services Dr James Fong said.

He was questioned why Makoi was not closed off because of the considerable number of positive cases coming from that area.

Dr Fong said, “From a medical perspective a proper red zone in relation to COVID-19 is a red zone that discusses and identifies where the spread of the disease is in terms of the source and where they are at any point in time.”

“Geographically Makoi leads to many other places so calling it a red zone from the disease point of view is not an easy thing to do.

“Calling it a red zone from a behaviour point of view that’s another thing, it is another aspect of the operation that we have discussed with the police.”

He said they have identified red zones based on the behaviour of residents and they will beef up policing of those areas during this lockdown period.

“We will put in place stronger measures for those areas. When people don’t move we can start looking closely at our distribution of resources within hot spots where people’s behaviour is not healthy enough for us. We are focusing on high risk areas defined by the behaviour pattern that we see and the police is working out the data on that.”

Makoi Deceased

He revealed that the screening teams deployed to Makoi had screened members of the Makoi woman’s household and they did not meet the criteria to be swabbed for testing.

“The screening team did go around to the household, there was no symptoms reported at that point in time and the household did not meet the swabbing criteria, when they presented to Makoi she was quite sick,” Dr Fong said.

“They were assessed previously and the family was not regarded as having any evidence of the disease and they presented two weeks later at the health center and managed her and arranged for her referral.”

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