At least two coronavirus cases have been recorded in Tonga as it recovers from last month’s volcanic eruption and tsunami, forcing the once covid-free archipelago nation into a complete lockdown.
Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni said the country would go into lockdown from 6 p.m. local time Wednesday and that the restrictions would be reviewed every 48 hours, local news website Matangi Tonga reported.
He said there would be no boat or plane travel between Tonga’s roughly 170 islands — three dozen of them inhabited — until further notice. Schools will be closed, government bureaucrats given time off and masks are encouraged in public spaces, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
It is not clear how the virus was transmitted into Tonga, though the two people who contracted it worked at a port in the capital, Nuku’alofa. But there was an outbreak of over two dozen cases aboard an Australian navy ship, the HMAS Adelaide, which docked at the port last week. Aid deliveries has also arrived from New Zealand, France, Japan, and China — all countries that have varying levels of coronavirus cases.
Curtis Tuihalangingie, a senior Tongan diplomat in Australia, previously said the nation’s aim was to avoid a “tsunami of covid” hitting the islands through aid deliveries after the devastating volcanic eruption and subsequent tsunami.
Tonga had previously only logged one coronavirus infection, which was detected in hotel quarantine in October and triggered a week-long lockdown.
The Tongan government on Wednesday released a list of places where the virus could have been transmitted from the two cases in recent days, including a church, a kindergarten, a bank, and several stores.
Tongan health minister Siosaia Piukala said on Jan. 27 that aid supplies from the Adelaide would be offloaded by Australian naval personnel and the deliveries would be quarantined for 72 hours before being distributed by Tongan workers. Infected people on the HMAS Adelaide were isolating with their close contacts aboard.
The Adelaide has also been hampered by a power outage that stranded the ship off Tonga. Most of the ship’s personnel were sleeping above deck due to the heat — there was a high of about 84 degrees Wednesday — according to the ABC.
Australia’s foreign ministry not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. But foreign minister Marise Payne said last week that Canberra had delivered 40 tonnes of aid to Tonga, including shelter materials, water and sanitation supplies.
“We appreciate the decision of the government of Tonga to enable HMAS Adelaide to dock and offload the humanitarian and medical supplies,” she said.
Cleanup efforts in Tonga after the twin natural disasters, which killed at least three people, struck on Jan. 15.
Over 180 people were evacuated from three badly-hit islands to Tonga’s most populated island, where they were supplied with tents, kitchen kits, and bags of clothing.
About 60 percent of Tonga’s 105,000 residents have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Washington News