80% now had 1st shot

Eighty percent of the CNMI’s eligible population has now received their first COVID-19 shot, bringing the Commonwealth a step closer to herd immunity.

Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. chief executive officer Esther Muña announced this progress in a Twitter post on Saturday and she said in a later interview that, based on current trends, the CNMI can expect to reach 80% fully vaccinated—when it can claim herd immunity against COVID-19—three weeks from now, as roughly 2,200 individuals are scheduled to receive their second vaccine doses in the upcoming weeks.

“Herd immunity” refers to a form of indirect disease/infection protection that is achieved when a certain percentage of a population has become immune to an infection either through vaccination or past exposure to an infection/disease, reducing the chances of community spread and allowing those with no immunity to remain healthy without receiving a vaccine shot or being exposed to disease.

In related news, three additional individuals have been confirmed positive for COVID-19 from passenger arrival testing, bringing the total COVID-19 count for the CNMI to 214 individuals since March 28, 2020.

In a statement last Friday, CHCC said the three new cases were identified by travel screening and confirmed through testing on arrival on Aug. 11, and fifth-day testing on Aug. 12, 2021.

The individuals have been moved to the designated quarantine area for close monitoring. The CHCC Communicable Disease Investigation/Inspection team has initiated contact tracing for contacts with the highest risk of exposure.

Muña said Sunday that many COVID-19 restrictions in the CNMI could be lifted once herd immunity is claimed, but travel restrictions and safety protocols will still remain due to the threat of the delta variant and other mutations of the COVID-19 virus.

“The CNMI can remove most restrictions then, [but] because the threat of the delta variant is still there, travel protocols will likely remain. Herd immunity [is] effective, but when you still have a large number of unvaccinated and many with chronic illnesses, detecting positive cases before they enter the community is still critical,” said Muña.

She made clear that the CNMI reaching 80% fully-vaccinated should not be the end of the community’s efforts against COVID-19, and spoke of the importance for people to get vaccinated.

“The virus fights back hard in high-transmission areas and we need to be careful when people travel to those areas and return to the CNMI. Getting vaccinated improves our defense against that situation. If the unvaccinated do not have that extra defense, that’s a problem for our community,” said Muña.

Muña added that an unvaccinated individual is highly likely to transmit COVID-19 to other unvaccinated individuals. A vaccinated individual who tests positive for the virus is less likely to transmit the virus to another vaccinated individual, but is more likely to transmit the virus to an unvaccinated individual. “We need to push to get more people vaccinated,” said Muña.

Based on what is known about vaccines for other diseases and early data from clinical trials, experts believe that getting a COVID-19 vaccine also helps keep people from getting seriously ill even if they do get COVID-19.

Register for vaccinations at www.vaccinatecnmi.com, by calling the CHCC call center at 682-SHOT (7468), or registering in person at any vaccination site.

View the new COVID-19 dashboard at https://chcc.datadriven.health/covid19 (updates next business day).