 |
| FILE - In this photo provided by Broadcom Broadcasting, people clear ash off a damaged area in Nuku'alofa, Tonga, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022, following Saturday's volcanic eruption near the Pacific archipelago. Kiribati and several other small Pacific nations were among the last on the planet to have avoided any virus outbreaks, thanks to their remote locations and strict border controls. But their defenses appear no match against the highly contagious omicron variant. (Marian Kupu/Broadcom Broadcasting via AP, File) |
Kiribati finally began reopening this month, allowing the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to charter a plane to bring home 54
of the island nation’s citizens. Many of those aboard were missionaries who had
left Kiribati before the border closure to spread the faith abroad for what is
commonly known as the Mormon church.
Officials tested each returning passenger three times in
nearby Fiji, required that they be vaccinated, and put them in quarantine with
additional testing when they arrived home.
It wasn’t enough.
More than half the passengers tested positive for the virus,
which has now slipped out into the community and prompted the government to
declare a state of disaster. An initial 36 positive cases from the flight had
ballooned to 181 cases by Friday.
Kiribati and several other small Pacific nations were among
the last places on the planet to have avoided any virus outbreaks, thanks to
their remote locations and strict border controls. But their defenses appear no
match against the highly contagious omicron variant.
“Generally speaking, it’s inevitable. It will get to every
corner of the world,” said Helen Petousis-Harris, a vaccine expert at the
University of Auckland in New Zealand. “It’s a matter of buying enough time to
prepare and getting as many people vaccinated as possible.”
Only 33% of Kiribati’s 113,000 people are fully vaccinated,
while 59% have had at least one dose, according to the online scientific
publication Our World in Data. And like many other Pacific nations, Kiribati offers
only basic health services.
Dr. Api Talemaitoga, who chairs a network of Indigenous
Pacific Island doctors in New Zealand, said Kiribati had only a couple of
intensive care beds in the entire nation, and in the past relied on sending its
sickest patients to Fiji or New Zealand for treatment.
He said that given the limitations of Kiribati’s health
system, his first reaction when he heard about the outbreak was, “Oh, my lord.”
Kiribati has now opened multiple quarantine sites, declared
a curfew and imposed lockdowns. President Taneti Maamau said on social media
that the government is using all its resources to manage the situation, and
urged people to get vaccinated.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based in
the U.S. state of Utah, has a strong presence in many Pacific nations,
including Kiribati, where its 20,000 members make it the third-largest
Christian denomination. The church has about 53,000 missionaries serving full
time around the world, working to convert people.
The pandemic has presented challenges for their missionary
work, which is considered a rite of passage for men as young as 18 and women as
young as 19.
As the pandemic ebbed and flowed, the church responded. It
recalled about 26,000 missionaries who were serving overseas in June 2020,
reassigning them to proselytize online from home before sending some back out
into the field five months later.
When COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in many
countries in April 2021, church officials encouraged all missionaries to get
inoculated and required it of those serving outside their home countries.
Church spokesperson Sam Penrod said the returning
missionaries remained in quarantine, were cooperating with local health
authorities and would be released from their service upon completion of their
quarantine.
“With Kiribati’s borders being closed since the onset of the
pandemic, many of these individuals have continued as missionaries well beyond
their 18 to 24 months of anticipated service, with some serving as long as 44 months,”
he said.
Before this month’s outbreak, Kiribati had reported just two
virus cases: crew members on an incoming cargo ship that ultimately wasn’t
permitted to dock.
But the Kiribati charter flight wasn’t the first time
missionaries returning home to a Pacific island nation tested positive for
COVID-19.
In October, a missionary returning to Tonga from service in
Africa was reported as the country’s first — and so far only — positive case
after flying home via New Zealand. Like those returning to Kiribati, he also
was vaccinated and quarantined.
Tonga is desperately trying to prevent any outbreaks as it
recovers from a devastating volcanic eruption and tsunami earlier this month.
The nation of 105,000 has been receiving aid from around the world but has
requested that crews from incoming military ships and planes drop their
supplies and leave without having any contact with those on the ground.
“They’ve got enough on their hands without compounding it
with the spread of COVID,” said Petousis-Harris, the vaccine expert. “Anything
they can do to keep it out is going to be important. COVID would be just
compounding that disaster.”
In the long term, however, it is going to be impossible to
stop the virus from entering Tonga or any other community, Petousis-Harris
said.
Nearby Samoa, with a population of 205,000, is also trying
to prevent its first outbreak. It imposed a lockdown through until Friday
evening after 15 passengers on an incoming flight from Australia last week
tested positive.
By Thursday, that number had grown to 27, including five
front-line nurses who had treated the passengers. Officials said all those
infected had been isolated and there was no community outbreak so far.
While the incursion of the virus into the Pacific has
prompted lockdowns and other restrictions, there were signs that not all
traditional aspects of island life would be lost for long.
“Government has decided to allow fishing,” Kiribati declared
on Thursday, while listing certain restrictions on times and places. “Only four
people will be allowed to be on a boat or part of a group fishing near shore.” -AP