By Martha Taumata
The National Emergency Operations Centre, NEOC, is planning to have all the quarantine sites in the country emptied before Christmas and up to the New Year.
To do that is it is scheduling only two more repatriation flights next month in December to be the last for the year.
The flights are booked for the 4th and 7th of December to give the passengers time to serve out their required 14 days of quarantine and then go home before the holidays.
“Our last flight on December 7th is from New Zealand whereas on the 8th we hope to land a flight from Fiji to bring in our students for the holidays,” NEOC chairman Agafili Shem Leo told the media in a press conference during the week.
“We also have a lot of graduates from the Theological School in Suva eager to return home coming on that flight from Fiji.”
All of the repatriation flights since the service started have originated from New Zealand with only a few exceptions so far from Fiji and one from Australia.
NEOC has kept a count on the number of arrivals from New Zealand so far and an estimated 3 thousand stranded Samoan travellers are back home again.
At first there was an estimate made that by October all the stranded travellers from New Zealand would be home.
“ But that is not the case, with the last two flights next month already booked out, it appears the numbers are growing rather than going down.”
An anxiety wave swept across Samoa on Thursday morning when a confirmed case of the coronavirus was announced from one of the return travellers.
Relief was slow in coming after the anxious wait for the outcome of a Cabinet emergency meeting in the afternoon ended when the Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, confirmed the repatriation flights will continue as scheduled.
Another anxiously awaited flight is scheduled for the end of this week, landing at Faleolo International Airport directly from Los Angeles. (see other story)