Tonga records its first COVID case

Tonga has reported its first-ever COVID-19 case on Friday since the outbreak has started. The active case reported is of a fully vaccinated individual who arrived on a repatriation flight from New Zealand.

The citizens are now rushing to take jabs of the vaccine after the COVID-19 case has been reported in the nation.

The Prime Minister of Tonga – Pōhiva Tuʻiʻonetoa warned that the country might go under lockdown by next week, although no confirmation has been made by him yet.

Prime Minister Tu’i’onetoa noted that he had been advised by professionals to enforce an immediate lockdown as “the virus will take more than 3 days to develop in someone who catches it before they become contagious”.

Following the statement, he asserted, “We should use this time to get ready in case more people confirm they have the virus“.

More than 100,000 people live on the island nation, out of which only a third has been fully vaccinated against COVID, But national immunisation coordinator – Afu Tei noted that people in thousands had been turning up at vaccination centres to receive their jabs.

The infected individual was among 215 people on a repatriation flight from Christchurch, New Zealand. Others who were in the flight included members of Tonga’s Olympic team who had been stranded in the city since the Tokyo Olympics. New Zealand’s health ministry informed that the individual earlier tested negative before leaving the country.

Since the start of the outbreak, over 246 million COVID-19 cases have been confirmed across the world, and around 5 million people lost their lives to the deadliest mutant, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Tonga is located northwest of New Zealand. Countries such as – North Korea and Turkmenistan have yet not recorded a single case of the COVID-19 virus since the pandemic emerged, but as per experts, these countries might be having coronavirus cases but not have been officially confirmed by the authorities.