COMMONWEALTH Healthcare Corporation Chief Executive Officer Esther L. Muna on Wednesday said five applications for home quarantine will be reviewed today, Thursday, for approval.
After stringent review, quarantine protocols have been modified to provide a home quarantine option for returning residents, and these will take effect Thursday with the inbound flight from Guam.
Returning residents who are currently in quarantine at a government facility can opt to home quarantine for the remainder of their quarantine period, provided they meet the home quarantine criteria.
Prior to approval, the returning resident applying for home quarantine would need to register and complete a health declaration through the CNMI Office of the Governor website 72 hours before his or her arrival.
Those who are eligible for the home quarantine option must be a returning resident who was fully vaccinated in the CNMI prior to their outbound travel beyond CNMI borders.
S/he would then be tested upon arrival and undergo an interview by trained medical staff on the Contact Disease Investigation team. The interview will include a behavioral analysis as well as verification that the resident has indeed been fully vaccinated.
His or her home will also be inspected by the Department of Public Safety and must meet certain criteria prior to approval.
These include ensuring that all household members are fully vaccinated, as well as that the unit is within a safe distance from neighboring units.
The returning resident is required to list all individuals he or she will be inhabiting the home with during the quarantine period.
Once approved, the returning resident is required to submit daily check-ins on their symptoms.
The task force will conduct surprise check-ins on the returning resident for every day that the returning resident is quarantined at home.
All inbound passengers are still required to provide their PCR tests, be tested upon arrival into the CNMI, quarantine — whether it is in the government facility or a home approved for home quarantine, and be tested again on the fifth day after their arrival.
The criteria for home quarantine are based on data and science provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We want to make sure that this is something we can control…. That has always been our mission here,” said CEO Muna.
“As we make changes along the way, we are looking at things that we can control, and one of those things that we can control is that the information coming to us is verifiable.”
Not everyone who applies for home quarantine will be approved, she noted.
“If you can convince us that you can do this, then we will set you up. Of course, we have to wait for your [Covid-19 test] results to come back negative [first], then you are set and will be required to return for fifth-day testing,” Muna said .
She noted that although home quarantine is an option for returning residents, so far, many have opted to quarantine at a government facility.
Should a returning resident approved for home quarantine fail to comply with the quarantine protocols, he or she will be face penalties, including fines.
“We expect people to comply. We want people to comply,” Muna said.
Public health is not stagnant; it is constantly moving and transforming, she added, citing the community transmission this past weekend.
But the CNMI has the tools or resources to control community transmission, and these include vaccines and surveillance, Muna said.
“When it comes to public health, we also think about what’s up ahead in the future. This is not just about this moment…. We are looking at every aspect of our mission here in the CNMI,” she added.
She said it is also important to consider the aftermath of the virus, including Covid-affected individuals who are unemployed, or struggling with mental health or other illnesses.
“We’re looking at this in a holistic manner, and making sure that we’re doing this the right way because, again, public health continues to change, and this is the new normal that we could be moving into,” she added.
“But this is not a new quarantine. This is not a changing quarantine. It is a modified quarantine that was available to critical essential workers and now we have the ability to continue to control this…. This is not something that we just made up. It is something that we already have in place that we can control and, on top of that, something that is in line with what CDC has given us.”
The alternate care site at Kanoa Resort is the CNMI government-designated facility for those who are under investigation for or have tested positive for Covid-19 and must be isolated.
Photo by K-Andrea Evarose S. Limol
