By Staff Writer
A planeload of 151 Samoans and contract workers arrived home on Friday in time to celebrate the 58th Independence Day tomorrow, Monday 1 June 2020.
Most except for a few exceptions are quarantined in groups at several selected hotels around Apia for the next 14 days.
But the coronavirus pandemic health security measures are not going to stop them watching the raising of the flag like the rest of Samoa.
The coronavirus lockdown has severely limited the national celebrations to television coverage including a live independence address by the Head of State, His Highness, Tuimaleali’ifano Va’aleto’a Sualauvi II.
There will be no march pass of schools and organisations at the Mulinu’u grounds for the raising of the flag as in past celebrations.
A police guard of honour will be on the grounds, however, to salute the raising of the flag.
The rest of the celebration activities will be past independence replays on television for everyone, including the new arrivals to enjoy in isolation.
Huge public interest and concern surrounded the arrival of the stranded travellers when the AirNZ afternoon flight from Auckland landed at Faleolo international Airport.
The National Emergence Operations Centre, NEOC, organised a tight, well organised extraction of the new arrivals from the time the flight landed.
The aircraft doors opened directly into the extended walkway to the airport terminal for immigration and quarantine clearance.
All were then re-directed to exit on a side door on the west side of the airport terminal.
They were bundled up into groups and loaded into white vans that set off in a long convoy, to present a sight never before seen on the ride from the airport to Apia.
All the windows of the 30 vehicles in the convoy were kept shut as the long procession made their way briskly into town along the coastal road.
The general public, especially families of the passengers were restricted from the airport terminal at the arrival of the flight.
The NEOC task force included a large police presence in addition to the regular airport frontline staff, taking all the necessary health security measures to process the coronavirus high-risk travellers.
The Controller of NEOC, Ulu Bismarck Crawley and the Director General of Health, Leausa Dr. Take Naseri, took into serious account public fears of the risks prior to the travellers’ arrival.
Lockdown restrictions have eased up slowly in the past few weeks around the country it added to public concerns with the new arrivals.
“All travellers must have a medical certificate from a registered doctor to confirm they don’t have the virus three days before travel, before they are allowed to board the flight to Samoa,” both Ulu and Leausa confirmed.
The strict health requirement virtually emptied the first scheduled flight for stranded travellers, with only 6 people who flew in last week.
The Friday arrivals are placed in groups of 10 people to be looked after by three health monitoring officials per group.
“We also have special cases who are placed under home quarantine with strict instructions that they are to remain isolated, we also have health monitoring officers keeping watch on them,” Leausa disclosed.
While the risks remain high for New Zealand infected already by the coronavirus, reports of no new cases in the past several days is encouraging to the local officials.
“Well it’s good for our confidence level, the longer they don’t have any new cases the better it is for us because it is a good sign that the virus risks are coming down or disappearing.”
More than a thousand stranded travellers are flying to Samoa in a series of flights scheduled all the way to August.
Most are reported to be Samoa workers who have completed their 6 months contract under the regional seasonal workers scheme whose visas have expired.
Others are local private and public staff who were in New Zealand when border travels into Samoa closed.
There are also returning medical patients who underwent hospital treatment in New Zealand under the national overseas health treatment scheme.
The next flight returning more stranded travellers home is to be confirmed pending the results of the first group now in quarantine.
NEOC officials have reminded that the ban on border travels are still enforced except for the special permission to fly in all national citizens stranded in New Zealand.