By Staff Writer
Samoa should be in a position to ease up on tight border restrictions under a ‘travel bubble ’ partnership arrangement as soon as June-July this year.
The timing is closely linked to the national COVID-19 vaccination rollout started officially in the Vaimauga area last Monday, 26 April 2021 where there is a heavy urban population concentration.
The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is administered in two separate dosage runs. The first went underway last week and the second and final injections to follow by the June-July period.
The Director General of Health, Leausa Dr. Take Naseri, is medically confident that with the expected 130,000 of the population fully vaccinated, the risks of the COVID-19 virus slipping in and spreading is minimised.
“We will also require all travelers into Samoa to be fully vaccinated as we are already doing now to give us even more protection,” Leausa clarified.
A travel notice was issued during the week to make it a requirement for all travelers to Samoa to be fully vaccinated first before they arrive. (see other story)
The normal quarantine stay of up to 3 weeks has eased slowly down to a precautionary one week of observation for fully vaccinated arrivals into the country.
A travel bubble is the growing trend in neighbouring New Zealand and Australia to open a corridor of safe movement of travellers without minimal on-arrival quarantine.
Leausa looks at American Samoa as the more ideal place to start a travel bubble partnership.
“Our neighbours have already been vaccinated and the territory has been as safe as we have since the pandemic started.
“There was a recent case of an historic carrier but it was not infectious.”
The Samoa Tourism Authority, STA, is already anticipating a travel bubble and is making sure they are as ready as they should be when it happens.
The need for a ‘Health, Safety and Disinfectant training to upskill staff is one of the more recent area of travel ready preparations the Authority has organised with assistance from New Zealand.
The assistance is part of the NZ Government’s ongoing commitment to support the tourism sector in anticipation of borders reopening and to help instill consumer confidence in travelling to Samoa.
“Operator training is a critical component of our travel ready toolkit,” STA Chief Executive Officer Fa’amatuainu Lenata’i Suifua, said.
“This is a very timely development especially as regional travel bubbles take shape and one which will support our collective efforts to ensure we are in a position to once again welcome and host visitors and for that we acknowledge the support of our development partner” Faamatuainu added.
The first phase of the training in collaboration with the Ministry of Health has already been executed with plans for a second phase of the training for the industry as we draw closer to the re-opening of our borders.