The chief of pandemic control in Papua New Guinea, David Manning, has now allowed a mass burial of 200 bodies to defuse the situation. The funeral is reportedly scheduled for later this week. Despite the escalating situation, the authorities wanted to currently do not order a lockdown and instead rely on “an effective medical response” and the vaccination campaign, according to the local newspaper “The National” on Tuesday.
However, the health system is extremely weak, in addition to widespread vaccination skepticism, coupled with the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant, said the Red Cross. “There are few tests, but what there is paints a really terrible picture,” says the medical research institute Burnet Institute. Of the 1,848 tests that were carried out nationwide between September 27 and October 3, 82 percent were positive. Meanwhile would seven out of ten people who presented with symptoms at Port Moresby’s largest hospital tested positive.