Cabrera says Guam can get CAR score down to lift restrictions

A new system of measuring how we fare in this battle against COVID has some people confused. Dr. Felix Cabrera and Krystal Paco San Agustin zoomed in to clear things up. 

This morning on the LINK, Cabrera of the Physician's Advisory Group, held a powerpoint presentation to help break down the newly set in place, CAR score system.
The CAR Score, Or COVID AREA RISK score is intended to act as a measure of where the island stands in its handling of the virus. The car score takes into account the Incidence of New cases, How well our testing identifies the new cases and the Rate of Spread. As of Nov. 12, the Island's Car Score stands at 37.5. According to Dr. Cabrera, getting the island's CAR score down, can happen relatively quick.

"This First wave, when we were at a 27.5 CAR score, we got that down to five in 13 days," Cabrera said. "And, that was with the stay at home order, so, in 13 days we went down from 27.5 down to 5. So, that's important to note, that we can do this in a fairly rapid fashion and just like the United States Surgeon General, Jerome Adams said to us, that we really can do this and if we just commit for a minimum of 2 weeks, that we really can get this suppressed."

The current suppression goals for the island's CAR score are to get the score below five, and maintain that through Thanksgiving, for a minimum of two weeks, with an ultimate goal of keeping the score below 2.5. Press Secretary Krystal Paco San Agustin spoke on the change from Adelup's initial recovery plan.

"So the Chalan Para Hinemlu Plan, you know, that

 

was early on in our response and we do recognize that there are some shortcomings with that plan," she said. "Because, it was meant to go one way and not necessarily back the other way. So, that initial PCOR plan was mostly a goal towards recovery, but once you got back it's response, it became very difficult to meet those benchmarks, those triggers you talked about and so, we're gonna go back and reevaluate that. The strive for five campaign really just simplifies it."

In a recent statement from Adelup, Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero said that if Guam can get it's CAR score down to five consistently in the coming weeks, she may be inclined to lift certain restrictions, in time for the holiday season.

"And so, the Joint Information Center, we are committing to, putting that CAR score, making it very visible with our nightly reports so the public can gauge, OK, this is a good CAR score, this is a bad CAR score," Paco San Agustin said. "Just like your credit, your credit score, you know that if you're 700 and above creditors really look at you and they want you, that want to give you loans. And so, that's the same thing incentivise. Incentivize this because the holidays are coming up. Birthdays coming up, Christmas is coming up, New Years is coming up, We don't want a repeat of this all through 2021, even with the promise of a vaccine, we wanna make sure the people of Guam can manage the virus."

With the recent surge in positive cases, many believe it will take a miracle to bring our CAR score in time to lift restrictions for the Holiday season, but even if we can bring the score down, the concern still remains, with more lifted restrictions, how well will the island do at managing the virus.