Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — A hearing to address the increase of positives cases from the Jan. 27 Hawaiian Airlines flight, along with complaints by passengers in quarantine is now scheduled for this week. The hearing will take place before the House Health committee, chaired by Rep. Andra Tereise Samoa.

During last Friday’s House Session, Samoa updated faipule on the situation and said that 191 passengers from the three quarantine sites were supposed to be released last Friday, however, the plan changed after two passengers, a couple, from the Tradewinds Hotel quarantine site tested positive after the third COVID-19 test was administered.

The two new positives bring the total number of positives cases to 43 — 8 Department of Health quarantine staff and 35 are passengers. Samoa further stated that there are also reports about some passengers who acted unruly, damaging furniture and equipment at the quarantine sites. Samoa said that DoH medical staff and members of the COVID-19 Task Force understand the frustration and the complaints and they’re trying to address them.

Samoa said that according to the Task Force, there’s no change to the February 17 flight, which is scheduled to bring in more than 300 passengers this Thursday.

Vice Speaker of the House, Fetui Fetu Jr said he’s not happy with the situation going on with passengers and DoH quarantine staff testing positive. He said that all travelers on the last HAL flight who didn’t answer truthfully on the TalofaPass registry must be prosecuted.

According to Fetui, a former cop, offering false information in a situation like this is a violation of the law.

Fetui urged that the House write to the governor to express concern with what is happening at the quarantine sites and question whether the territory is adequately protected. He said they should seriously look at whether the TalofaPass system is effective and whether the vendor is a good company.

According to Fetui, everything went smoothly while the registration of travelers coming into the territory was under ASG however, ever since the TalofaPass took over the registration. “we’ve had a lot of problems.”

(Samoa News should point out that the Omicron variant of COVID-19 is highly transmissible and was not a part of the narrative at the time the ASG was handling passenger registration. Further, the first leg of quarantine happened in Hawaii, with those testing positive while in this quarantine, removed from the flight, never stepping onto the plane. Currently, the first quarantine stay is handled in American Samoa, with those testing positive then removed to an isolation site in the Territory.)