“Don’t travel.” That’s the best advice available as the coronavirus known as COVID-19 spreads globally, including throughout the United States.
In a revised and updated travel advisory issued Tuesday night this week, the Ministry of Health and Human Services suspended visits by cruise ships until further notice and urged anyone planning to travel from or to the US states of Washington and Florida to postpone their travel. This is based on both states declaring state of health emergencies this past weekend because of spread of the coronavirus.
“RMI residents and citizens who are planning to attend missions, conferences, trainings and group trips held outside of the RMI are strongly advised to postpone their travel until further notice,” the new advisory recommends.
Travel to RMI remains barred to people coming from China, Macau, Hong Kong, Japan, S. Korea, Italy and Iran. No new countries have been added to the “no travel” list since last week.
The 30-day quarantine period for any container vessel that has been in a port in these seven countries prior to arrival in RMI remains in effect.
Meanwhile, the Swire container vessel Coral Chief that was denied entry to Majuro last week because it did not meet the 30-day quarantine dropped the Majuro-bound containers in Fiji where they will be picked up by the vessel Kota Hapas and are scheduled for delivery to Majuro March 24, close to a month late.
Two Kyowa container ships were off-loaded last week.
There is no certainty about arrival of the next Swire vessel because its normal schedule puts Majuro just eight days away from Busan, S. Korea, which runs afoul of the current Ministry of Health and Human Services requirement for a 30-day quarantine period for all container vessels. Swire transports 50 percent of all imported food for the Marshall Islands.
Swire representative Phil Welch said the company was concerned about all of its crew and customers and is doing its best to meet all standards to deliver food to the RMI and other nations. But, he added, the RMI is the only country in the Pacific enforcing a 30-day quarantine. All others, including FSM, are using a 14-day period for ships. Welch said Swire was “scrambling” to work out how to meet the 30-day system for the next ships scheduled to arrive later in March.
He said it astounded him that ships were being put on a 30-day quarantine when planes are flying in daily with passengers who have mingled in large airport terminals with passengers from countries with the coronavirus. He said he hoped “the parameters will change to a realistic” situation soon because serious delays in container vessels will affect the food supply here, putting local residents at risk. He said food security needed to take the same priority as health.
Health Secretary Jack Niedenthal said the 14-day quarantine period was based on the earlier SARS outbreak, but the the new coronavirus has an incubation time of up to 27 days. “Hence, the 30 days,” he said. “We don’t want to relax anything until we are ready.”
The RMI government is fast-tracking the construction of an eight-room isolation facility at Majuro hospital for possible future coronarivus patients. The contract was awarded Wednesday last week and work started this past Saturday on the project, he said.
In the meantime, said Niedenthal, the College of the Marshall Islands is assisting the Ministry of Health and Human Services to reconfigure facilities at its rural Arrak Campus to be used as an isolation area for “patients under investigation.” And additional supplies of gear needed to protect health workers working with contagious patients has been ordered have begun arriving.
He said Ministry of Health staff have already begun outreach to community members about coronavirus prevention, and will be expanding these community efforts in the coming days.
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