4 more test positive
Four more individuals have been confirmed positive for COVID-19 from passenger arrival testing.
This brings the CNMI’s total to 210 reported positive cases of COVID-19 since March 28, 2020. The new cases were identified via travel screening, and confirmed positive on arrival on Aug. 6 and Aug. 8, according to a Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. announcement.
The individuals have been quarantined and are being actively monitored, and CHCC’s Communicable Disease Investigation/ Inspection team has already initiated contact tracing for the most immediate contacts of the new confirmed cases.
In related news, CHCC chief executive officer Esther Muña on Friday said that vaccination numbers need to be higher before conversations about administering booster shots can begin. The recent calls for booster shots worldwide comes in reaction to the highly transmissible delta variant of the COVID-19 virus.
“People have talked about booster shots, [but] let me tell you [that], as a public health official, my role is to try to get as many people vaccinated first before I even start talking about booster shots. We need to get more people vaccinated before you even discuss that,” said Muña.
According to an online definition, a booster shot is an additional dose of a vaccine needed periodically to “boost” the immune system.
In world news, Israel, France, Germany, and many Middle East countries have already started administering booster shots, and countries like the United States and Britain are considering plans to administer booster shots as well.