HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of Friday noon local time still lists Guam’s Covid-19 community level risk as “high,” but the governor’s office said local data has already been showing an improved “moderate” level.
CDC’s data was last updated March 17, and is expected to be updated again by Friday Guam time.
“Our community risk level is now moderate, based on latest data,” the governor’s director of communications, Krystal Paco-San Agustin, said, citing delayed data entry by the CDC.
Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero also on Monday announced forecasts that Guam’s risk level will be down to “moderate” this week based on data over the past days, which prompted an increase in social gathering limits indoors from 100 to 250.
“The mask mandate remains in place,” Paco-San Agustin said.
The CDC looks at three metrics: new Covid-19 admissions per 100,000 population in the past seven days, the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by Covid-19 patients, and total new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 population in the past seven days, to determine the Covid-19 community level.
When the CDC lists Guam as being in a moderate risk level, community-level prevention steps would still include vaccination, implementing enhanced prevention measures in high-risk congregate settings like correctional facilities and homeless shelters, ensuring access to testing, and maintaining improved ventilation in public indoor spaces, among other things.
The Joint Information Center on Thursday reported 67 new Covid-19 cases out of 626 tests on Wednesday.
Covid-19 hospitalization as of Thursday was 16, including two in the intensive care unit and one on a ventilator to help with breathing.
Based on latest data, there would be eight vaccinated people hospitalized for Covid-19 compared to 87 unvaccinated people hospitalized for it. That’s because of Guam’s vaccination rate of nearly 96% of all vaccine-eligible residents or those at least 5 years old.
Guam’s Covid-19-related fatalities since March 2020 reached 340.
Guam Air National Guard Tech. Sgt. Genevieve Terlaje, left, sits for her Moderna booster shot on March 14, the first day of the Covid-19 Vaccination Clinic at the Agana Shopping Center. Administering the shot is Leann Kriebel, right, a licensed practical nurse with FEMA.
