The pacific island of Tonga, officially known as the Kingdom of Tonga, has discovered its first COVID-19 case since the virus hit the world. Tonga is one of the few countries globally that has not recorded a single case of the virus attack until recently.
Now, the pacific island faces a soft threat to its health system and indeed, the entire nation since the discovery of a single individual case who just returned from a journey to a nearby country.
Last Friday, Tonga’s Prime Minister, Pohiva Tu’I’onetoa, confirmed the first case ever, owing to a passenger aboard a flight from New Zealand to Tonga. Although health authorities in New Zealand claim that the infected individual tested negative for the virus before leaving the country, Tonga’s authorities have placed the concerned person in isolation to prevent further spread.
Meanwhile, government authorities of Tonga have announced a week-long lockdown in a bid to stall the further spread of the deadly virus. The lockdown order is expected to take effect shortly after Tuesday midnight, BBC News reports.
Tonga’s geography stretches across an 800km space in a north-south line, and it is bounded to the North-West by Fiji and Wallis and Futuna (France). To the North-East, the Polynesian country is bordered by Samoa. To the North-West, it is bordered by New Caledonia (France) and Vanuatu. To the East, the Kingdom of Tonga is bordered by Niue, which is its nearest foreign territory, while to the South-West, the pacific island is bordered by Kemadec (New Zealand).
Tonga sits about 1,800km away from New Zealand’s North Island, and it comprises 169 islands, but only 36 islands are inhabited.
Rapid vaccination efforts are underway in Toga’s 104,494 populated islands. Still, only one-third of the entire population have been reported fully vaccinated. While turnouts for vaccination are impressive, according to the country’s officials, about 48 percent of Tongans are yet to complete their vaccination dose.
Health reports from the country signal no severe health condition for the individual who was among the 215 persons on the repatriation flight from Christchurch, New Zealand. However, Tongan’s government is unwilling to think lightly of the situation. Neither are they slacked towards preventative solutions to the threat that has befallen them through this single individual exposure.
The country’s lockdown order will mean that schools, bars and restaurants will remain closed throughout the containment period, and night-time curfews will be effected. To this end, businesses and supply chains will see a temporary halt, and economic activity in the most affected area by the lockdown will see a decline. There is no current information about remote educational services provided to students during the period of the lockdown.
Accordingly, people must isolate themselves in their various homes and adhere to social distancing rules. Tongans are expected to abide by COVID-19 prevention rules as directed by the United Nations in a collaborative effort with their government to secure the integrity of the country’s healthcare environment for its people. Exemptions are made, however, for cases where individuals must seek medical care, purchase groceries and other home supplies, buy medicine or access bank-related services.
The lockdown order affects only the residents of Tongatapu, which is the most occupied island of the country by population density.
Tonga’s government hopes that the lockdown order will help settle rising dust as far as potential cases are concerned. Also, frontline workers, including medical and health staff, law enforcement officers, and airport workers who were on duty when the infected individual arrived in the country alongside 215 others from New Zealand, had been ordered to self-isolate.
Meanwhile, in nearby Fiji, the Delta variant of the coronavirus pandemic strongly hit the nation, infecting over 500,000 people and killing at least 673 individuals, according to Associated Press.
Fiji had avoided a significant virus outbreak until April, when the new variant struck without due notification.
Since the start of the pandemic, over 246 million COVID-19 cases have been reported worldwide. According to John Hopkins University data sources, of the globally reported cases, nearly 5 million COVID-19 related deaths have been confirmed.
So far, there is no evidence of a virus spreading to other island nations in the Pacific like Tuvalu. Also, there are no currently known or reported cases of COVID-19 infection in North Korea and Turkmenistan. However, sceptics believe that there may be unreported cases in these regions, especially in North Korea, but their officials may be uninterested in making public statements about such.
