By Staff Writer
The Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa has sparked a national debate on whether or not we should open our international travel borders and learn to live with the COVID pandemic.
“Time to look at opening our borders,” Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mataafa, declared in a press conference following the Cabinet meeting last Wednesday.
Whether we take chance on our health security is to be decided by a study the disaster management committee NEOC is now tasked with as well as making recommendations to Government.
NEOC is directed to advise Cabinet on how Samoa can live with COVID, in what PM Fiame believes is a pandemic that is here to stay, as it appears to be the same around the world.
No time period was revealed on when the NEOC report is to be handed in or how comprehensive, but it is expected to consider the size of Samoa, population, health workers, hospitals, economy and all the other key sectors with impacts on health.
“Doctors will have to come up with answers,” PM Fiame said to hint at where much of the NEOC report attention will focus.
Opposition MPs Lealailepule Rimoni Aiafi, Fuaava Suluimalo Penaia and Lupematasila Tologata Tile, had strong reservations but agreed with the PM’s emphasis on the doctors role in identifying problems and finding credible solutions.
The trio told the media in a press conference last week that massive preparations will have to be in place and all services ready to go before the borders should be opened.
The ‘don’t rush’ warning lights blinked repeatedly in the cautious approach the opposition MPs revealed.
“Even with COVID vaccination I suspect people struggling with common non-communicable diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes are high risks with weakened immune system,” MP Fuaava Suluimalo Penaia felt.
“ Our hospitals do not have the capacity to handle COVID on top of other health services.
“We also have to look at our frontline workers whether they have the numbers to cope with the workload if they too are going to be held up in quarantine.
”These workers need down time to rest so we need the have the country ready in anticipation of what is to come – better safe than sorry.”
MP Lupematasila Tologata Tile is understanding of the juggle for health and wealth by Government with the intentions to open the borders and help revive the serious bite by the COVID pandemic on the national economy.
“Do we have the capacity to handle the virus if it gets out into the community, that’s the major questions for us,” Lupematasila said.
“Do we have enough doctors or frontline workers because the lockdown following that flight from Australia and the cancellation of flights is because our health system was unable to handle more new arrivals into the country at the time.”
Lupematasila would prefer a lose study of the impacts of the pandemic on larger countries and their economies and see how likely that will have on us as a small country and economy.
President of the Nurses Association, Papali’i Solialofi Papali’i, did not want to comment on the decision making by Government or the extent of the challenge to live with the virus.
“Eat to live and not live to eat,” Papali’i suggested as the full extent of the commitment required from every individual if they are to be effective with their health security if Samoa is to live with the virus and stay safe.
Nurses play a key frontline workers role and have already become victims of their service, as recent as the health worker who was tested positive at the weekend for the virus working with passengers of a New Zealand repatriation flight a week ago Sunday 6 March 2022.
The health worker is now in the TTM Hospital isolation ward at Moto’otua and is the only frontliner to be tested positive from 12 others who are all passengers of the NZ flight.
All cases are asymptomatic.
The celebration of the 60th anniversary of independence is coming up in June and it is unclear from the PM if a decision to open the borders should be decided by then to allow for travel into the country.
Fiame said the preparations are still very much at the undecided stage with the number of days set aside to officially mark the occasion yet to be looked at.
Samoa continues to be protected from any community spread of the virus unlike many of the close neighbours, including American Samoa.
The question many will ponder in response to the NEOC task in the coming days is whether Samoa is prepared or will even be ready to live with the COVID virus once it spreads into the community.