Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — At Tuesday afternoon’s COVID-19 Task Force weekly briefing, LBJ Medical Center reported a new COVID related death, bringing the cumulative mortality total to 34 since the first death relating to the deadly virus was reported in American Samoa in March.

The latest fatality was a 72-year old male, who had other existing health issues. And this death was a late reported case — as presented to the task force meeting, and therefore was not included in the overall COVID-19 related deaths in the Health Department’s Situational Report for the week of Aug. 01 to Aug. 07.

LBJ also reported the rise in the number of influenza — or flu — cases, thereby increasing the patient load in the Emergency Room. As a result, the hospital is not conducting COVID-19 testing for the public — only for patients coming in to LBJ. Members of the public seeking to be tested are referred to DoH clinics.

DoH reports that it’s testing those with suspected influenza cases and there is a need to get the word out to the community to get the COVID boosters — as the pandemic is still present in the territory.

In a July 28 health advisory, DoH announced that American Samoa “is currently experiencing an outbreak of the flu which can present similarly to COVID-19 symptoms.” (See Samoa News edition Aug. 1 for details.)

One of the issues raised during the task force briefing, is the policy for when first responders are to return to work after testing positive for COVID-19.

Attorney General Fainu’ulelei Falefatu Alailima Utu — who led the meeting in his capacity as vice chair of the task force and the acting Governor’s Authorized Representative (GAR) — asked DoH for an agreed upon uniform policy for the length of isolation for ASG workers and first responders.

DoH Clinical Service director, Dr. Elizabeth Lauvao responded saying that the policy has always been five-days for first responders and front line workers. After the 5 days they come back to test to make sure they are not still positive before going back to work, according to ASG officials who attended the task force briefing.

For the week of Aug. 01 to Aug. 07, DoH reports 82 new positive cases from the 4,574 tested at DoH clinics and LBJ hospital.  With the new positives, total cumulative COVID-19 count stands at 8,031 since the first community case was recorded on Feb. 28, while there are 158 active cases. (See yesterday’s edition for details.)