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Does COVID community spread put Flag Day celebration in doubt?

2019 Flag Day
Governor expected to make a decision before the end of the month
ausage@samoanews.com

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The Chair of the American Samoa COVID-19 Task Force, Lt. Gov. Talauega Eleasalo Ale announced during last Friday’s Zoom conference that Gov. Lemanu Peleti Mauga will make an announcement later this month about this year’s Flag Day celebration, which is now 4 weeks away.

In response to questions from members of the local media, Talauega said the governor would make the final determination whether or not to hold a Flag Day celebration in light of the COVID spread.

During a Cabinet meeting in January of this year, Talauega had announced that a fautasi race, cricket tournament, fishing tournament, farm fair and a marching band competition, were among the planned activities for this year’s Flag Day.

The Samoan Affairs Office oversees this annual celebration and Talauega said at the time that the Flag Day committee meetings were already underway.

Flag Day this year, April 17, falls on Easter Sunday and the committee has planned a Flag Day church service later in the day, with the flag raising ceremony set for Monday, April 18.

There are also plans for the traditional “fa’afiafiaga” but the committee had ongoing discussions on this matter.

Other planned activities include: a business fair and the Arts Council annual Flag Day festival. The committee also wanted to hear from the local Education Department whether the annual speech festival could be held during Flag Day week.

Talauega had said that they were hoping that all events would be in place by the end of this month so that there are no questions about the Flag Day program and its activities.

He said the Samoa Prime Minister and other officials would be invited and it will probably be during this time that the Two-Samoa Talks would be held.

Towards the end of January 2022, KVZK-TV started airing an announcement by Deputy Secretary of Samoan Affairs, Tauese Va’a Sunia, that there would be a fautasi race this year, as put forth by the governor. Tauese said the announcement was being made in advance so that villages have enough time to consider and prepare for participation. No other information was shared on this event.

Tauese also announced that registration for the Flag Day cricket tournament for both men’s and women’s divisions started the second of January of this year.

However that was before community spread of the Coronavirus in the territory.

Flag Day celebrations in 2020 and 2021 were scaled back to a very minimum due to COVID-19 restrictions at the time, with no fautasi race or cricket tournaments.

Sen. Soliai Tuipine Fuimaono during a Senate Session in January of this year questioned whether it was safe to hold a full-fledged 2022 Flag Day celebration amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

 Now, with community spread, many members of the public have raised concerns about the Flag Day plans.

They are concerned about the increase in numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases every day. Some expressed their fear and concerns that a huge gathering like the Flag Day celebration would cause the virus to spread more quickly in the community.

One concerned citizen believes that if the government really wants to stop the community spread of the virus they should do a full lockdown like what the Government of the Independent of Samoa did a few months ago.

“If you look around us, the number of confirmed positives cases is going up but people are roaming around like nothing is happening in our territory. How are we going to live with this virus for the rest of our lives?” one concern citizen asked.