Cook Islands Prepare for Their First Covid-19 Case

Just to the northeast of New Zealand rests a collection of 15 islands. Called the Cook Islands, they are largely independent but still rely on New Zealand’s military. They also have been interestingly untouched by the COVID pandemic of the last two years. That may change now that a traveler recently tested positive for Omicron upon returning from the islands. 

Cook Islands Prepare for COVID

On Sunday, Prime Minister Mark Brown reported that the small South Pacific nation is preparing itself for its first coronavirus infections after an infected traveler visited. The (unnamed) traveler from New Zealand spent a total of eight days in the community. He subsequently tested positive for Omicron when returning home, Brown said in a video posted on the government’s Facebook page. 

“It is likely that the person … was infectious while here and further likely that the virus is in our community,” he said. “It may be there is ‘silent transmission,’ where our high vaccination rate is so protective that people get Covid but so mildly that they do not realize they have it.”

Data shows that 99.6% of the island nation’s approximately 17,000 people over the age of 12 are double-vaccinated. 70% of those eligible have had booster shots.

The Cook Islands resumed quarantine-free travel with New Zealand a month ago. Like most of the world, the country shut itself off from the world when the pandemic hit in early 2020. In December, the government reported one case of Covid-19 in a person quarantining after arriving on a repatriation flight. They avoided exposing the traveler to the community.

“The fact that we have a high percentage of our people vaccinated will give us substantial protection from serious illness,” Brown said. The idea of an island nation flush with beaches and largely untouched by the pandemic sounds like a paradise; let’s hope they can keep this scare to the minimum.