GIFF JOHNSON
Amata Kabua International Airport took on a festive air last Friday for the arrival of a special Fiji Airways charter flight.
Virtually the entire local Fiji community was on hand to greet the plane and some were ticketed to fly back to Fiji on the return flight.
The welcome was accompanied by ukulele playing, high spirits and signs greeting the 48 passengers — most of them from Fiji, although a few Marshallese were in the group, and their families were on hand to welcome them from a distance.
Shortly after arrival, the group was bused to the Arrak Quarantine Facility where they are required to remain for the next 14 days. Chief Secretary Kino Kabua said the group will be tested for Covid-19 on day seven and day 14 of their two-week quarantine.
The incoming Fijians include a team of nurses for Majuro and Ebeye hospitals, educators who will work for the Ministry of Education, College of the Marshall Islands, and the University of the South Pacific Majuro campus, and pilots.
In addition, there were two Marshallese pilots who were in Fiji for training and were stranded by the Covid-19 border shut down in the Marshall Islands.
This is the first group of essential workers to be brought into Majuro since the border was closed on March 8. Since early June, however, the US Army has repatriated over 300 workers at the Kwajalein missile range. All of the Army workers are required to undergo two sets of quarantine: A 14-day quarantine in Hawaii, with Covid-19 testing, prior to departure to Kwajalein, and a 21-day quarantine at Kwajalein.
The Army repatriation program has a longer quarantine protocol because people are coming from the United States, which has a serious Covid-19 situation. Fiji, however, is reported to have cases of Covid-19 only among people in managed quarantine. Fiji’s lack of Covid-19 transmission in the community allowed the 48 new arrivals to come to Majuro without first quarantining in Fiji for two weeks.
In other Covid news:
• The Federated States of Micronesia on Tuesday this week indefinitely postponed a scheduled December 5 repatriation flight — it was to be the first repatriation of FSM citizens stranded since the border closed in March due to Covid-19.
In tandem with this decision, the FSM national government has requested the United States to forego the annual Operation Christmas Drop activities in the FSM this year. The indefinite postponement of the repatriation exercise, and the cancellation of Operation Christmas Drop, are both due to ongoing concerns regarding the Covid-19 pandemic.
Regarding the indefinite postponement of the December 5 repatriation effort, FSM President David Panuelo upon receiving a briefing on the mechanics and technical components of the repatriation, learned that there are potential gaps in the effort to make an airtight process.
“I have every confidence,” President Panuelo said in a statement, “with our national government’s preparedness to repatriate our citizens stranded abroad. But, upon multiple meetings with the Pohnpei State executive and legislative leadership and staff, and technical follow-ups with our health staff, it is clear that certain scenarios, however unlikely they are to occur, could threaten the safety of our citizens.
“My decision to indefinitely postpone this first repatriation flight stems entirely from safety concerns, some of which are due to an emerging capacity shortfall issue with our healthcare responders at the Pohnpei State Hospital. I have demanded an airtight repatriation regime, and I have been briefed on possible, if unlikely, scenarios that could result in Covid-19 spreading into the community. I cannot and will not allow that to happen.”
All FSM repatriation efforts are postponed indefinitely until further notice.
• The first group of repatriated Marshallese were released from four weeks of quarantine at Kwajalein Monday this week after everyone in the group tested negative for Covid-19 two weekends in a row.
“All 27 people from the first RMI repatriation group have tested negative and will be released (Monday) at 9am and can freely return to their families and communities,” said Health Secretary Jack Niedenthal Monday this week. “We currently now have no active cases of Covid-19 in the RMI.”
The Office of the Chief Secretary said that after three of the 27 tested positive for Covid-19 with active cases on November 15, two additional follow up Covid-19 tests were negative. The group was tested again on November 22 and November 29, with all showing negative results in both of these tests. Because of the positive tests for three members of the repatriation group November 15, the quarantine period was extended for an additional week.
The three who tested Covid-19 positive during their quarantine period “remained asymptomatic and have met the criteria for recovery from Covid-19 as set out by the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control,” said the Office of the Chief Secretary.
Some of the 27 returned to their families on Ebeye, while the others returned to Majuro Tuesday on two AMI flights.