Apparently, it is the position of the current ASG administration that repatriation flights to American Samoa will only be allowed to take place once herd immunity for Covid-19 has been reached. 

Herd immunity basically requires that enough people in a population be immune to a disease such that it cannot be readily passed on to others in that same population, and thus no epidemic of that disease can take place.

Herd immunity can be acquired either through natural means ‒ that is, enough people get sick from a disease, recover, and are then immune to it — or through artificial means — that is, they are vaccinated against that disease and never get sick from it in the first place

Apparently, 3,900 doses of the Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19 are scheduled to arrive in the territory this coming weekend.

However, this is only enough to vaccinate 1,950 people in American Samoa, as the vaccine schedule calls for two separate shots that are given several weeks apart.

Of course, those people will only receive that second shot if ASG doesn't screw things up by failing to keep the vaccine stored at -94 degrees Fahrenheit, as that is the required storage temperature. If it gets any hotter than that it quickly goes bad.

Despite the recent assurances of the chair of the Coronavirus Task Force to the contrary, it is extremely unlikely that the LBJ hospital has a refrigerator that can reach let alone maintain that cold of a temperature. Minus 94 degrees F is colder than almost any known naturally occurring temp on the face of the earth, far below that of all but the coldest, most frigid reaches of Antarctica.

Even very few hospitals in the US have frigs capable of such cold temperatures, as there is usually no need to keep anything refrigerated at such a low temp and it is quite costly to do so. (In fact, this is a problem when it comes to distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine within the United States let alone to American Samoa.)

So do you really think LBJ has that kind of refrigeration capability when it otherwise has no need of a refrigerator that is quite costly to buy, maintain, and operate?

If the Pfizer vaccine cannot be maintained at -94 degrees Fahrenheit for several weeks, then the only other option is when the first vaccine shipment arrives here to quickly give 3,900 people their first Covid-19 vaccine shot and then hope that another shipment arrives in time to give them their second required shot.

And then wait for another batch of vaccines to arrive to give the next 3,900 people their first shot.

And then wait for the next batch to give them their second shot…and then the next batch... and so on and so forth.

Depending on the disease in question, herd immunity is only reached when 80 to 95 percent of a population is immune to a disease.

Therefore, based on an estimated population of 55,000 people in American Samoa approximately 52,255 people in the territory will need to be vaccinated for Covid-19.

Assuming that the Covid-19 vaccine continues to be supplied to American Samoa as per the current schedule, it will be several months (at the very least) before enough people in American Samoa are vaccinated to prevent a Covid-19 epidemic from occurring here.

Why, you might ask? Simple math, that’s all: At 3,900 people vaccinated per completed vaccination round — remember, it requires two separate shots given several weeks apart — the territory will need to go through at least 14 such rounds to reach the 95% level required for herd immunity.

And of course, that's only if all goes well and as planned, which is usually not the case.

Therefore, if ASG will only allow repatriation flights to take place once an adequate level of herd immunity through vaccination for Covid-19 has been reached in American Samoa, then based on the scenario presented above, the first repatriation flight will occur not in February 2021 but several months — perhaps even as much as a full year — later.

Bottom Line: If Lemanu and Ale want to repatriate those people who are stranded off island any time soon, they are going to need to come up with a plan that involves more than just relying on the Covid-19 vaccine.

(Note: In the case of Covid-19, no one is really sure what percentage is required for herd immunity as it is a novel disease, but given the serious consequences of a Covid-19 epidemic in American Samoa, it is probably safer to go with the figure of 95 percent. However, even if you went with a lower rate of 80 percent to reach herd immunity, you would still need to vaccinate 44,000 people in the territory which, at 3,900 people per round, would require 12 such complete rounds.)