The recent wave of COVID infections since August is not the first frightening surge in Guam. The island community experienced something similar last August and September, and actually the situation was even getting worse in the fourth quarter.
While vaccines have been rolled out and, as of Aug. 31 this year, 80.43% of Guam residents 12 years and older were fully vaccinated, our island reported a total of 47 COVID-related fatalities in September, which was surprisingly higher than the death number of 39 reported last September, when no vaccine was available at that time.
Obviously, vaccines alone aren’t suppressing the surge.
Guam is not the only place having a bad September. Singapore reported 28,901 new infections and 40 deaths in the month after the vaccination rate was, exactly like Guam, beyond 80%. Their COVID death number was zero last September. The epidemiological investigation and laboratory results concluded the changed situation was mainly caused by the delta variant of the coronavirus.
So, Guam and Singapore have been using the same effective vaccines, have reached the same high vaccination coverage, and then encountered the same more contagious variant. However, Guam, with less than 200 thousand residents, relatively reported much more COVID deaths (47) than Singapore, with a population of 5.7 million, did (40) this September. It is very likely that, under the same conditions, Guam had more severe cases than other places. Perhaps that consequently resulted in more fatal tragedies.
Of the 60 COVID patients in the hospital on Oct. 7, five were children, ranging in ages of 1 day old to 8 years old. However, the worldwide data show that children usually do not develop serious illness once they are infected with the coronavirus. More information, therefore, is needed. For example, if these little patients have any underlying health conditions, to help Guam figure out the factors.
For adults, Guam also needs to investigate if the high prevalence of obesity, diabetes, renal issues and heart disease might be the reason why Guam is, relatively, having more severe COVID cases than other places. If it is the case, the system has to pay a bit more attention to the control and prevention of those chronic diseases and consider it an important part of the long-term strategy in the post-COVID era.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien-Loong emphasized in his Oct. 9 national address: “When the number of cases grows very large, even 2% of a very large number will translate to many patients needing hospital and ICU beds. Our healthcare system would rapidly be overwhelmed.”
Singapore therefore further expands health care capacity and strengthens case management so that they can “better identify COVID patients with mild symptoms to recover at home” and make sure the system can “properly care for those who fall seriously ill” as well as continue to attend to many non-COVID patients who also have urgent medical needs.
It seems Guam needs to do what Singapore is doing now. Guam also needs to learn from Palau’s effort to promote a healthy new normal after their vaccination coverage reached 80%. Thoroughly adjusting to the new normal might be the reason why Palau is still a paradise of extremely low COVID risk. Guam should take its inspiration from the neighboring island’s success.
