On April 30, 2020, Guam adopted the Pandemic Condition of Readiness (PCOR) system. This four-tiered approach, set out in the Guam Recovery Panel of Advisors’ Chalan Para Hinemlo plan, establishes the criteria for the lifting of mandates and restrictions imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While the PCOR system may be new, the concept is not. In establishing the PCOR, the government of Guam adapted the familiar four-level approach of the Typhoon Condition of Readiness (TCOR) system for preparing for the arrival of a tropical storm or typhoon.
Ultimately, the PCOR system and the accompanying Chalan Para Hinemlo (“Road to Recovery”) plan, has four major goals:
- To empower government officials to leverage specific medical data and public health preparedness capabilities to raise or lower mandates and restrictions.
- To define the responsibilities of businesses, non-governmental organizations, government entities, and individuals during each phase.
- To mitigate the risk of a resurgence of COVID-19—or any future pandemics that confront the island.
- To prevent overwhelming Guam’s healthcare system to ensure patients can get the care they need.
- To leverage a familiar concept—the TCOR—to make the system simple to understand.
To discover more, you can download this PDF of the Guam Recovery Panel of Advisors’ Chalan Para Hinemlo plan presentation—or keep reading as we take a close look at the elements of the PCOR system.
Understanding All 4 Pandemic Condition of Readiness Levels
As with the TCOR, PCOR 1 is the most critical stage, with restrictions at their maximum. PCOR 4 is the least critical stage, with no restrictions in place.
The Guam Recovery Panel of Advisors has instituted a number of milestones that will trigger the decision to move between levels. So you can understand the factors informing the government’s decisions, we’ve laid out the criteria below from the Chalan Para Hinemlo plan:
Triggers Inform Decision to Move from PCOR 1 to 2:
- Cases: Downward trend of confirmed cases and a downward trend of positive tests as a percent of total tests over a 14-day period, utilizing a 5-day rolling average.
- Hospitalization: Guam hospitals are able to treat all inpatients without resorting to alternate standards of care due to COVID-19 cases.
- Testing: Guam has the capacity to test all people with COVID-19 symptoms.
- Contact Tracing: The DPHSS has the capacity to conduct adequate monitoring of all COVID-19 cases and tracings of their contacts.
Triggers to Inform Decision to Move from PCOR 2 to 3:
- Cases: Downward trend of confirmed cases and a downward trend of positive tests as a percent of total tests over a 28-day period, utilizing a 5-day rolling average starting from when PCOR 2 was declared.
- Hospitalization: Guam hospitals continue to be able to treat all inpatients without resorting to alternate standards of care due to COVID-19 cases.
- Testing: Guam continues to have the capacity to test all people with COVID-19 symptoms and the availability and affordability of rapid and reliable testing of travelers as it relates to quarantine requirements.
- Contact Tracing: The DPHSS continues to have the capacity to conduct adequate monitoring of all COVID-19 cases and tracings of their contacts.
Triggers to Inform Decision to Move from PCOR 3 to 4:
- Immunity: Ability to confer adequate immunity on Guam either by mass administration of an FDA-authorized SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, if ever developed, or by the confirmation that enough herd immunity has developed, via natural disease and recovery, to prevent another outbreak.
In addition to defining the criteria for moving between PCOR levels, the Chalan Para Hinemlo plan also defines the responsibilities of businesses, NGOs, government entities, and individuals. If you’re a DeWitt Guam customer—or you plan to be in the future—we’d like to share a little about how our operations are affected by the PCOR system.
DeWitt Guam Operations Under the PCOR System
As a transportation and logistics company critical in supporting Guam’s supply chain, DeWitt Guam is considered an essential business. As a result—and to the extent of our knowledge—we will be allowed to continue operations during all PCOR levels. That being said, we’ll continue to follow all the restrictions and guidelines set out by Governor Lou Leon Guerrero and the government of Guam. To give you an example of how local mandates might affect our operations, if a family were to arrive on Guam who is subject to the 14-day quarantine, we would delay delivery of their household goods until that family’s quarantine has completed.
Additionally, we will continue to monitor all of our operations to ensure the health and safety of our team, our customers, their families and the entire community. We also are committed to upholding the Minimum Pandemic Workplace Operational Requirements issued by DPHSS.
If you’re curious about the kinds of changes we have implemented during the pandemic, they include:
- Training our staff to self-screen for symptoms of COVID-19.
- Instituting work-from-home procedures for employees who suspect they have COVID symptoms.
- Screening our customers to determine the potential for exposure to COVID-19.
- Establishing procedures so that our moving and delivery teams wear masks and have access to hand sanitizer, hand soap and gloves. Any time we need customers to sign or review paperwork, our team uses a fresh pair of gloves and a clean pen.
- Wiping down the interior and touchpoints on our trucks, as well as all of our moving equipment each day with a bleach-based sanitizing solution.
- Following social distancing guidelines when our drivers pick up items at the port and deliver those items to their final destination, as well as in our terminal/base yard, where our staff wear masks and follow social distancing guidelines.
- Establishing safety procedures when we work in customers’ homes, which include asking customers to minimize the number of people present, for their protection and ours, requesting that doors be opened to minimize touchpoints and establishing a location for handwashing, either within the customer’s home or outside, where we can supply water for that purpose.
If you have any concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us to discuss your unique situation.
Obviously, this is an unprecedented situation, and we’ll continue to adhere to the guidelines issued by the government of Guam and our governor. Ultimately, we’re committed to continuing our moving, freight, transportation, records management, and certified document destruction services for businesses, individuals, and government agencies. We’re also dedicated to fulfilling our responsibilities to our clients, as well as the safety and welfare of our employees, their families, and you, our customers.