Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The current surge of the COVID-19 community transmission is projected to peak next week and into early next month, and is expected to slow down in early May, according to Lt. Gov. Talauega Eleasalo Ale, head of the COVID Task Force and the territory’s lead Epidemiologist at the Health Dept., Dr. Aifili J. Tufa during a virtual news conference on Monday this week.

U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Epidemiologist Dr. Richard Brostrom said during a news conference about two weeks ago that the current surge is still in its early phases and “will of course eventually end. And this won’t go on that long, usually six weeks or eight weeks — is what we’ve seen in the other Pacific islands.”

Speaking at the start of Monday’s news conference, Talauega explained that based on assessments and projections by CDC epidemiologists and local medical experts, the current surge “will peak in late March to early April — Mar. 27 through April. 2.”

 “It is believed that, at its peak we will have about 240 to 250 cases per day. At that point, our cumulative numbers of cases will be around 3,800 to 4,000 cases,” he said. “This surge based on current projection is expected to calm down around May 10 to May 14. At that time, it’s estimated that our total count of positives will be around 7,300 to 7,500.”

And based on experience from other Pacific areas, “this positive rate corresponds to our fatality portion that will be around .1% to 1.5%.  For us in American Samoa, this means that there will likely be fatalities in American Samoa before we are done with this surge,” he said.

Talauega, who is also the Governor’s Authorized Representative (GAR), said the territory is in “the early stages of its omicron COVID-19 surge,” which started on Feb. 21 when 8 people in the community were infected.

He reminded the public that the territory is currently under “Code Safe, learning to live safely with COVID” and noted that these goals and plans remain moving forward, as previously made public.

And moving forward for Tutuila island, he said means the “primary goal is reduce or to completely prevent deaths from COVID. We will continue to open up our economy to allow businesses to operate safely. We can do this if we follow the safety guidelines provided by medical professions — mask up, social distance, vaccinate and [get] boosted; and come test if you feel the symptoms and get treatment.”

“That is the simple but proven strategy on how we control and learn to live with COVID,” he said.

The Manu’a the island group — as of Monday this week — does not have a community spread “and “we would like to keep it that way. Our goal moving forward is to keep Manu’a COVID free and to allow operations in Manu’a to continue including schools.”

And “that’s why we have locked down commercial flights to Manu’a, only critical services to Manu’a are allowed,” he said.

On the projections of when to expect the surge to peak, Talauega emphasized that it’s “important to remember, these are only projections, they are not actual things that will happen. And our prayer is that we can improve our case as we gather more information, and as we get more people to get vaccinated, and get tested and treated.”

“These next two weeks will be our toughest. I pray that our community, leaders — government, church, village leaders — will continue to lead our community in peace and calm, keep the faith,” he said. “This will be the time for us to stay strong, support one another. And it will not be the time for us to point fingers and start to divide.”

Dr. Tufa gave an update from the DoH side saying that the “omicron variant is very transmissible, [and] moves very quickly” and he joined Talauega in encouraging the public to get vaccinated, boosted and get tested for therapeutic treatment.

He also discussed further the projection on the expected “peak” in the surge, using Palau, Guam and Hawaii for comparison, based on a seven-day case calculation rates, which provides the number of cases to be expected per day.

He explained that the “expected peak time for our outbreak, given the particular pace we are going at right now, the peak is expected at the ending of March or the beginning of April. And at this time, the number of cases, are expected to be anywhere from 240 to 250 cases per day.”

“At this rate I’m sure... we can expect a huge surge of people coming to the hospital and even at our test centers,” he said.  “So we ask the public and the community, please do your part in this very difficult time that we are about to embark on.”

And that is, “check out your symptoms, if you become symptomatic, come out to one of our sites to get tested, and assess for treatment. It is these treatments that will help us reduce severe disease and hospitalization so that we can minimize the number of people going” to LBJ Medical Center, he said.

“Lastly with this projection, we can expect that by the beginning of May or even the first week of May, our numbers will be coming down to levels where, hopefully we will mark the ending of this outbreak,” he said.

Asked if DoH has identified the variant in the community spread, Dr. Tufa explained that when “we received the positive samples for the first few cases, we sent them to the Hawaii state lab for sequencing and about two or three weeks later, we got back the results, the variant we are dealing with right now is the omicron variant. It’s the omicron VA1.”

(CDC online - www.cdc.gov - has specific explanations of the omicron variant]

Talauega in his closing remarks following the one-hour news conference Monday extended a “special thank you, on behalf of the governor, to our federal partners” for their response and assistance to American Samoa’s call.

And he “acknowledged the great assistance from Palau, whose government donated over 200 therapeutics that have helped us to increase the amount of medicine that we have on island.” He also expressed appreciation to the leaders of the territories of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, as well as the state of Hawaii for their help in providing other assistance needed by American Samoa.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa has announced the Samoa Government is extending its alert level three lockdown for another two weeks, due to the rapid spread of COVID-19 in the community.  Read details and updates on our website: www.samoanews.com or the Samoa News Facebook page: www.facebook.com/samoanewsmedia