(Reuters) — Cook Islands, a small South Pacific nation that has not skilled Covid-19 in its group, is readying for its first COVID-19 coronavirus infections after an contaminated traveler visited, Prime Minister Mark Brown mentioned on Sunday.
The traveler from New Zealand spent eight days in the neighborhood and examined optimistic for Omicron upon returning dwelling final week, Brown mentioned in a video posted on the federal government’s Facebook web page.
“It is probably going that the individual … was infectious whereas right here and additional doubtless that the virus is in our group,” he mentioned.
“It could also be there’s ‘silent transmission’, the place our excessive vaccination fee is so protecting that folks get Covid however so mildly that they don’t understand they’ve it.”
Official information present that 99.6% of the island nation’s roughly 17,000 folks aged 12 and over is double-vaccinated, and 70% of these eligible have had their booster pictures.
Cook Islands resumed quarantine-free journey with New Zealand a month in the past, after shutting itself off from the world when the pandemic hit in early 2020.
In December, the nation reported one case of Covid-19 in an individual quarantining after arriving on a repatriation flight, who was not uncovered to the group.
“The proven fact that we now have a excessive proportion of our folks vaccinated will give us substantial safety from critical sickness,” Brown mentioned.
Top picture: Rarotonga, Cook Islands. Credit: Adobe Stock