Caucus has recently endorsed the policy framework to guide the country’s efforts against the Community Transmission of Covid-19.

This revelation was made by the Chief of Staff in the Prime Minister’s Office when making his presentation during a talkback show over the national broadcaster over the weekend.

Robson Djokovic said that details of the new policy framework will be forthcoming over the coming days.

He however said that Cabinet is continuing its deliberation over the final details of the community transmission policy response plan which, once completed, forms the basis of our response plan going forward.

“For clarification purposes, the redirection together with the economic sustenance component of the policy still remain intact.

“The government passed the redirection policy last year which focused mostly on the productive and the resource sectors because of the economic downturn resulting from the pandemic,” Djokovic said.

He further added that these are challenging times and the world as a whole is trying to rebound from the impacts of Covid-19 and Solomon Island is not exempt from such global challenges.

“Because of our susceptibility to economic shocks, we have to be extra careful and strategic about how we manage Covid-19 community transmission in the country and hence, the measures developed in the new policy are aimed at striking a balance in our economic priorities whilst simultaneously managing the community transmission of Covid-19,” the Chief of Staff said.

He went on to say that the policy is focused on managing, limiting and controlling the spread of the virus in our communities.

Mr Djokovic however admitted that even with all the measures and protocols that have been taken in other countries, the virus continue to spread despite the declining numbers.

“In the Solomon Island’s context, we are focusing on managing community transmission so we can have the ability to be able to protect our people by providing proper information, guidance and medical services and health care to subdue and contain the impacts that the virus is having on our country and people,” he said.

He says the previous policy was basically focused on keeping the virus out from entering our communities where we successfully managed up until early this year.

“Because the virus is now in the country, a policy shift is needed from keeping the virus out to managing, the transmission within the country and in so doing, protecting our vulnerable citizens” Mr Djokovic said.

Vulnerable population are those that have pre-existing medical conditions such as hypertension (high blood), asthma, and diabetes amongst others.

The new policy framework is aimed at protecting this group of people because they are most at risk and susceptible to the virus.

He mentioned that indicative data based on positive cases to date has shown that Solomon Island has some level of resilience to the virus.

“This means that our immune system has some form of natural resilience to the virus and our health experts are researching and hard at work behind the scenes, looking into this,” he said.