Public Health downscaling COVID services

COVID testing at some of the hotels has already closed due to the low cases that have been reported over the past couple of weeks. Public Health COVID-19 incident commander Patrick Luces, gave the breakdown.

"We are going to be scaling down some of our operations. We already did close the testing site over at PIC and Nikko earlier this week, on the 18th and so at the end of the month, we will be closing the rest of our hotel testing sites," he said. 

Along with the testing sites, the vaccination clinic at the Agana Shopping Center will also be closing on Sept. 30.

"We want to encourage everyone to go and get vaccinated while we still have it open to the community and to the public," Luces said. "After Sept. 30th, then you would be able to reach out to our Northern or Southern Community Health Clinics and just call to make an appointment."

The testing site over at Tiyan will remain open to cater to residents that may need COVID testing done.

The recent COVID report shows the new cases per day are now below 20 and the daily hospitalization count has decreased and also remains below 20 per day.

Territorial epidemiologist Dr. Ann Pobutsky also gave a rundown of where the island is using the CDC community risk metric.

"I think we’re still at medium, we probably should be at low, but there’s always a lag time for the CDC when they officially list where Guam is at and the other states, so last week we were at medium," she said. "We were downgraded from high to medium and hopefully, soon, we’ll be low."

Public Health reminds residents that if you are feeling sick, stay home and get tested. Should symptoms worsen, you are urged to contact your primary caregiver or seek immediate medical care.

Residents have one week to continue to make use of the hotel testing sites located at the Hyatt Regency, Plaza Shopping Center and the Dusit Beach Resort, as well as the vaccination clinic at the Agana Shopping.