Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Task Force chair, Lt. Gov. Talauega Eleasalo Va’alele Ale provided a brief summary — including costs — of the 2021 COVID-19 travel operations during this past Monday’s regular meeting, where it was also mentioned that the $100 vaccination incentive ends this week.

“About 9 repatriation flights and 6 commercial flights have cost the American Samoa Government an estimated $24 million in total,” Talauega said in a press release issued this week by the task force.

A more detailed report on the costs of the American Samoa Government’s 2021 COVID-19 travel operations will be ready for submission to the Fono for the Governor’s Annual State of the Territory Address, the press release indicated.   

MASS VACCINATION DRIVE

In the first 10 days of December, a total of 4,973 COVID-19 vaccination doses were administered mainly at mass vaccination drive sites at schools and church halls including at clinics during after hours and the usual public vaccination sites. 

3,003 of these doses were of children aged 5 - 11 years old.  A chart comparing coverage for public schools and private schools showed that 45.8% of public school children are fully vaccinated and 24.8% of private school children are fully vaccinated. 

With regard to local vaccination coverage (entire population), 

77.2% have at least 1 dose

67.5% are fully vaccinated

14.2% have no shots yet

8.6% are ineligible (under 5 years of age)

American Samoa Department of Health Dr. Aifili Tufa provided global updates on the virus stating that over 267 million cases have been recorded and over 5.2 million deaths. In the last 24 hours, 617,469 new cases and 7,940 new deaths were reported globally. In the Pacific Island Countries and Areas, 450 new cases and 1 death have been reported. 

The AS Department of Health has sent out 10 samples to the CDC for genomic sequencing and are mostly confident that the samples are the delta variant. 

EAST MASS VAX DRIVE CONTINUES TODAY

The day-two mass vaccination sites and schedules for the Eastern areas are:

The Task Force encourages parents and residents to take advantage of the availability of sites before the Christmas Holiday and New Year. The $100 Incentive will be available until the end of the mass vaccination drive efforts this week. 

CHARTER FLIGHTS

The outbound Medicaid Charter on Monday prioritizing off-island medical referrals saw a total of 151 passengers depart. In addition, the Fiji charter bringing essential healthcare workers for the Department of Health and LBJ Tropical Medical center was scheduled to arrive yesterday, Dec15 with both incoming and outbound travelers. Close to 80 healthcare workers and dependents were scheduled to arrive and are undergoing quarantine at Sadie’s by the Sea for 7 days.

The Task Force chair told members on Monday he hopes that in the new year and as local vaccination coverage improves, quarantine requirements can be loosened until quarantine is no longer the order of the day for entry into the territory. He does acknowledge however that these decisions will be in close coordination with the recommendations of our medical community.

As to when this will happen, DoH Epidemiologist, Dr. Aifili John Tufa has continued to refer to Palau as an example of how high vaccination rates have allowed travel and tourism to resume with little to no quarantine restrictions and has “claimed close to 90% or even more being fully vaccinated. So they have repatriation flights coming in, with no quarantine — those individuals coming from different countries — they give them a test and then they go home.” (See Tuesday’s issue for details.)

Gov. Lemanu Peleti Mauga said in a previous news release that setting the vaccination rate at 90% is to achieve “herd immunity” which the governor points out “is the key for American Samoa’s defense against COVID-19.”

(Source: COVID-19 Task Force press release)