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Results for COVID-19

Monday 15 February 2021

Nuku'alofa, Tonga
The 107 passengers who were repatriated from Australia on February 11 have all tested negative for CoViD-19 in their first testing.
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Monday 15 February 2021

Apia, Samoa
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.
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Friday 12 February 2021

Auckland, New Zealand
New Zealand expects to vaccinate border workers within two to three weeks, followed by their household contacts, with the first batch of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine set to arrive in the country next week, announced Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today.
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Thursday 11 February 2021

Nuku'alofa, Tonga
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.
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Thursday 11 February 2021

Geneva, Switzerland
An equitable supply of vaccines is missing. Of the 128 million vaccine doses administered so far, more than three quarters of those vaccinations are in just 10 countries that account for 60 per cent of global GDP, UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore and WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus, said in a joint statement yesterday. “As of today, almost 130 countries, with 2.5 billion people, are yet to administer a single dose.”
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Wednesday 10 February 2021

Sydney, Australia
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.
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Wednesday 10 February 2021

Nuku'alofa, Tonga
A repatriation flight will bring around 122 passengers to Tonga tomorrow from Brisbane, Australia. Other flights scheduled for 25 February have been postponed to arrive in Tonga on March 3.
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Tuesday 9 February 2021

Nuku'alofa, Tonga
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.
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Monday 8 February 2021

Nuku'alofa, Tonga
All 114 passengers repatriated from New Zealand and Fiji on February 4 have tested negative. However, from this flight onwards, arriving passengers will be quarantined for 21-days at the managed facilities, with no further home isolation required.
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Thursday 4 February 2021

Nuku'alofa, Tonga
Ninety-eight passengers were repatriated on an Air New Zealand flight from Auckland this afternoon, confirmed MEIDECC CEO Paula Ma'u today.
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Tuesday 2 February 2021

Nuku'alofa, Tonga
More than 110 passengers are expected to be repatriated to Tonga, coming from Fiji and New Zealand on Thursday, February 4. They include consultants, stranded passengers and seasonal workers.
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Saturday 30 January 2021

Nuku'alofa, Tonga
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.
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Thursday 28 January 2021

Geneva, Switzerland
The World Health Organization (WHO) is calling on all countries to play their part in distributing CoViD-19 vaccines equally.
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Tuesday 26 January 2021

Suva, Fiji
The European Union has contributed EUR€20 million as part of an agreement signed yesterday, to help health sectors across Pacific Island countries (including Tonga) respond to CoViD-19. “It comes at a time when PICs are preparing for the arrival of the first allocations of COVID-19 vaccines which are expected in the coming months,” said World Health Organization’s Director of Pacific Technical Support Dr Corinne Capuano.
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Tuesday 26 January 2021

Nuku'alofa, Tonga
The IMF has approved US$9.95 million under its Rapid Credit Facility, to help meet Tonga’s “urgent balance of payments and fiscal needs arising due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Cyclone Harold.” Tonga's early closure of external borders had helped avoid a worse economic outcome. “Nevertheless, an economic contraction is expected in FY2021.”
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Tuesday 26 January 2021

New York, USA
New York Times reporting: Vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech effectively protect recipients. But in a worrying sign, they are slightly less effective against a variant found in South Africa. The news underscored a realization by scientific experts that the virus is changing more quickly than once thought.
Tuesday 26 January 2021

New York, USA
Just as political leaders like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have forced a reckoning about the historical persistence of fascist politics, so have their disastrous responses to the COVID-19 pandemic renewed the relevance of the concept of genocide. How else are we to come to grips with so many culpably avoidable deaths? As in Brazil, Indigenous communities in the US have suffered disproportionately from the pandemic. By Federico Finchelstein and Jason Stanley.
Monday 25 January 2021

Tongans stuck in countries such as USA and Europe will be allowed to travel and quarantine in New Zealand before they are repatriated to Tonga, confirmed MEIDECC CEO Paula Ma'u today, 25 January.
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Friday 22 January 2021

Nuku'alofa, Tonga
152 seasonal workers left Tonga on a chartered flight for Tasmania in Australia this afternoon, January 22.
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Tuesday 19 January 2021

Auckland, New Zealand
Air New Zealand is continuing its once weekly return service from Auckland to Tonga to run through to June 30. The renewed schedule includes other Pacific routes on its CoVID-19 international schedule which aims to keep air links open for essential movement.
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