A man in the remote community of Lajamanu has tested positive to COVID-19, a day after the community was released from lockdown.
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Health Minister Natasha Fyles announced on Thursday that the 45-year-old fully-vaccinated man received a positive test result this morning after being tested yesterday.
It comes after the lockdown on the remote community, around 560km from Katherine, was lifted yesterday when no positive COVID cases had been recorded and the wastewater had returned a negative result.
It went into lockdown on Saturday after the virus was detected in wastewater in the community.
"It is concerning for us that we do have a positive case in a remote Northern Territory community, but we very much feel that we have the situation under control," Ms Fyles said.
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The man and his 13 close contacts will be transferred to Howard Springs today.
She said the government believed the vaccination rate for first doses in Lajamanu was around 90 per cent.
However, Acting Chief Health Officer Dr Chales Pain said there were "some issues" with their vaccination data.
"What we've been able to do in the last few days is it gets to the point where there's hardly anyone you can find who hasn't had the first dose in Lajamanu," he said.
"There are some issues with our data. There is a challenge there."
Ms Fyles also announced that the hard lockdown in the community of Binjari would be lifted, going into a regular lockdown.
"The next round of testing for Binjari has come back in - 147 tests, all of those negative. We've also got negative wastewater for Binjari from November 30," she said.
"We still need the residents of Binjari to stay in their community. But they can have a little more freedom to try and get to the store and look after themselves."
However, Ms Fyles said COVID-19 was still being detected in the wastewater in the Katherine East area.
Acting said he wanted to see testing levels in Katherine lift.
"We need to get to the bottom of this. It is possible there are various explanations but we must assume the worst case scenario and that is that there is a case," he said.
"And so please, as you have been doing, come forward and get tested. I have to say that the testing rates have not been up to the levels that I would have hoped."
The remote community of Robinson River was also declared a "COVID-free zone" after it had its first ever COVID case over two weeks ago.
That was the first remote community outbreak in the Northern Territory, and they've done a great job, so the residents of Robinson River and the teams that work with them, thank you."
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