More than 200 new cases were recorded over the weekend with the Prime Minister warning that case numbers would climb as testing continues.
Health Minister Culwick Togamana told the ABC that authorities were facing a major challenge to contain the outbreak.
“The COVID-19 community transmission occurred before we detected the first case, it has already spread,” said Dr Culwick.
He said the country could only do 180 tests every 12 hours and modelling showed that cases could be in the thousands.
