Results for COVID-19

Air New Zealand will trial a digital vaccine passport for three weeks starting in April on its Auckland – Sydney route, the airline announced yesterday.

Repatriation flights are scheduled to arrive in Tonga on March 3, from New Zealand, Australia and Fiji.

The city of Auckland is now under level 3 lockdown for three days starting today after a family of three from Papatoetoe tested positive to CoViD-19.

A positive CoViD-19 test was reported in Samoa on Saturday in a passenger who arrived in Samoa from California, USA, via New Zealand, on 12 February. Further tests are to be conducted on other passengers and staff who were involved with the flight and quarantine.

107 passengers were repatriated to Tonga on a chartered flight from Australia this afternoon. A group of seasonal workers also departed Tonga on the same flight.

Eight hundred and fifteen additional seasonal workers from the Pacific Islands, including Tonga, have been approved to help fill jobs in horticulture and meat processing industries in New South Wales, Australia.

Tonga could receive the CoViD-19 vaccine “maybe at the end of the first quarter or beginning of the second quarter of the year,” the Ministry of Health Acting CEO, Dr Reynold ‘Ofanoa, said today, 9 February. Home quarantine was no longer allowed, because 27 people had breached the rules, out of 1,624 repatriates.

Ninety-eight passengers were repatriated on an Air New Zealand flight from Auckland this afternoon, confirmed MEIDECC CEO Paula Ma'u today.

Tonga is finalizing its National Deployment and Vaccination Plans to access CoViD-19 vaccines from the COVAX Facility, and initial quantities are expected to be announced soon. Health CEO, Dr Siale ‘Akau’ola said COVAX is assessing the readiness of participant countries, who will have to make a contribution if they want vaccination coverage of their population to be increased. Meanwhile, some other Pacific countries have started their vaccination programmes.