Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The number of positive cases from the community spread of COVID-19 remains very low at single digits, according to the Health Department’s COVID 19 Situational Report for the week of Dec. 12 to Dec. 18.

Of the 54 individuals tested at DoH Laboratory and LBJ Medical Center, the DoH report shows that six of them returned positive — which were recorded at LBJ. The report shows that 47 individuals were tested at the hospital.

DoH Clinical Service director Dr. Elizabeth Lauvao presented the report during Tuesday’s COVID-19 Task Force briefing, where she participated in the Zoom session from off island, as well as other task force members including a representative from the U.S Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Dr. Lauvao noted that previous weekly reports kept new positive cases at between one to five but this is the first time “we’ve seen six positive cases”.

Responding to a task force member question, Dr. Lauvao said she doesn’t have data on whether the new positives are vaccinated as these cases were reported by LBJ. And she will follow-this up with LBJ upon her return to the territory.

There was no representative from LBJ during the meeting.

With the new positives, total cumulative COVID-19 count stands at 8,272 since the first community case was recorded on Feb. 28, while the number of active cases stands at seven.

The DoH report also shows that COVID-19 related deaths remain at 34, which has been the case for the past several weeks, since the first death relating to the deadly virus was recorded in March.

The last data released by the government on COVID-19 positive cases was on Dec. 01, and shows that cumulative count of COVID-19 was at 8,264 positive cases.

TASK FORCE REPORT

Task Force chairman Lt. Gov. Talauega E. V Ale asked all relevant officials and agencies to work together on finalizing the task force’s annual report going back to 2020.

He said the annual report is important as it also be provided to “our federal partners” as well as the public.

“These last two to three years, we witnessed some amazing things happen in our government — people coming together, making extra effort to guide our people through difficult times,” said Talauega, who is also the Governor’s Authorized Representative (GAR).

“So we don’t want that hard work to disappear into bad memories. So we need to make sure that we document it and save it for future generations to see the work that was done,” he said and emphasized providing such report to federal partners.