Papua New Guinea will lift the current lockdown

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape is pushing plans to lift lockdown measures in the Pacific country this week, despite the recent sharp spike in coronavirus infections worries health officials. Marape said a two-week lockdown in the capital, Port Moresby, will be lifted from Wednesday, despite reported cases of COVID-19 doubling over the past week. "As long as the spread continues, this year we must prepare to live with COVID-19 instead of taking drastic measures," Marape said at a press conference on Monday. The outbreak also affects the country's mining operations, with a producer ceasing production after infections were discovered in its workforce. Mining generated $ 1.2 billion in foreign exchange reserves from January to September last year, according to a report by the World Bank, which also cut the country's growth prospects for the next three years from 5.9% last year to 3% in PNG. PNG had a total of 214 cases and three deaths on Sunday, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported, up from 104 cases and one death the previous week. Even more worrying is the WHO statement that the actual infection numbers were likely much higher given the low testing rates across the country. "The number of tests remains critically low in all provinces, so continued transmission in other parts of the country is a possibility as population mobility continues," she said. "The number of tests has to be increased significantly to understand the extent of the transmission. Like many of its Pacific neighbors, Papua New Guinea appeared to be escaping the first clutches of the pandemic. However, over the past week, new cases have been reported in nine provinces, including remote areas of the country, according to the WHO, with the majority of cases tracing back to Port Moresby. The outbreak has also spread to Bougainville, where a 22-year-old man tested positive after being flown in from the capital, PNG. Port Moresby was cordoned off for two weeks on July 28th, leaving only the most important businesses to operate, schools closed and transport services suspended. Temporary hospitals are being set up in sports facilities to cope with spikes in cases, National Capital District governor Powes Parkop told Australian Broadcasting Corp. "We just don't have any capacity, that's the bottom line," he said. "We can probably make more space, but we don't have enough medical staff." Concerns about the capital's outbreak were underscored when Australia's Newcrest Mining reported a COVID-19 case at its Lihir gold mine this week. According to Newcrest, the worker, a 30-year-old man, flown in from Port Moresby in late July. He did not stop production and announced that he would continue to test all arrivals three times during a mandatory 14-day quarantine period. The OK Tedi copper and gold mine is in the middle of a two-week production shutdown that the miner said is likely to cut state revenues by $ 40 million after reports last week that seven workers tested positive for COVID-19. Exxon, whose PNG-LNG project continues to run normally, said it has already introduced improved cleaning procedures and modified operating practices at all of its sites around the world. Coronavirus threat emerges as Canadian Barrick gold mine remains offline amid an argument with PNG's government.