Torres: Our goal is 100% testing

An Asia Pacific Airline plane lands at the Francisco C. Ada/Saipan International Airport yesterday from Honolulu, Hawaii, bringing with it more personal protective equipment provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The plane went on to bring similar cargo for Guam. (KRIZEL TUAZON)

The goal in the CNMI is to conduct 100% testing and that appears within reach, with 20,000 test kits now on the island, which arrived Monday night, along with a much-needed testing machine.

For the past few months, the Commonwealth Health Care Corp. has been sending specimens for COVID-19 testing to the Guam Public Health Laboratory and, most recently, to the Diagnostic Laboratory Services in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Speaking in a KMPP interview Tuesday morning, Gov. Ralph DLG Torres stated that the goal since Day 1 has always been to conduct a 100% COVID-19 testing in the CNMI.

“Our ultimate goal, since Day 1—working with [Commonwealth Health Care Corp. CEO] Esther [Muña] and the [Governor’s COVID-19] Task Force—is the ability to test our population at 100%,” Torres said. “We have a population of 55,000, of course, including Rota and Tinian. They will be simultaneously checked and get their specimens once we get the machine up and running.”

The governor earlier noted that, aside from those that are under quarantine, testing will be done on nurses, doctors, and first responders, then members of the community.

“We have the nurses and the doctors, and then, of course, our first responders and their families. Also the man’amko and, at the same time, with the folks that are being quarantined, either in Kanoa or those at home, and then eventually, we’ll have a system for the whole community,” he said.

With the CNMI having the capability to do its own testing, the expected turnaround time for getting somebody tested would be around 15 to 20 minutes, as opposed to a day when the specimens are sent off-island.

More test kits will be coming, along with the personal protective equipment, and supplies. According to the governor, the COVID-19 Task Force has ordered 60,000 test kits, and those that came in Monday are part of the first batch of supplies, and that the rest will come within the week.

The COVID-19 Task Force is also currently overseeing expansions in facilities that would be able to house and service more, should there be in an increase in COVID-19 positive cases on island, or PUIs, with the 100% testing to be put into place.

These include the 50-bed federal medical station being set up at the Commonwealth Health Center, and improvements at Kanoa Resort, the primary alternate care site on the island.