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Tu’ihalangingie also told Reuters the delivery of aid would not change as a result of the COVID-19 cases but that “front-liners will need to be more careful”. Mariner Fagaiava-Muller February 1, 2022 Health Minister says cases are likely Omicron. PM Siaosi Sovaleni will review lockdown in 2 days, encouraging prayer. 🇹🇴 Tonga will enter a nationwide lockdown at 6:00pm tomorrow, after two cases of Covid-19 were detected in the community. “I don’t think there’s any connection, there’s no evidence of that,” he told Sky News. The Australian Defence Force’s Chief of Joint Operations Greg Bilton also said it did not appear the HMAS Adelaide was the source and samples from the two wharf workers would be sent to Australia for testing to verify the origin of the COVID strain. “The wharf that had the case is a different one, used for commercial cargoes,” he said. Tonga’s deputy head of mission in Australia, Curtis Tu’ihalangingie, told the Reuters news agency that the community cases were detected at a different wharf and “not the one that the HMAS Adelaide used”. Meanwhile, in Australia, officials played down concerns that the crew of the HMAS Adelaide may have been responsible for Tonga’s outbreak. The stay-at-home order means all businesses and schools must close, with only essential services allowed to operate. He said the COVID situation in the country would be reassessed “every 48 hours”, and the government would decide whether to end or extend the lockdown depending on the outcome.

That is the reason for our national lockdown,” Tonga Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni told an emergency press conference on Wednesday. “The most important issue at the moment is for us to slow down and stop those who have been affected. Tonga has previously recorded only one case – in a quarantined traveller returning from New Zealand. The workers showed no symptoms but Tongan radio station BroadcomFM reported on Wednesday another three cases had been detected among three of the workers’ family members, bringing total case numbers to five.

While the first of Tonga’s community cases were detected in two port workers in the capital, Nuku’alofa, on Tuesday, officials said the men were not on the docks being used by foreign vessels delivering emergency assistance.Īustralian navy ship the HMAS Adelaide was known to have at least 23 COVID-19 cases on board when it docked at Vuna wharf last week and offloaded 250 pallets of aid to a quarantine zone.Ĭrew members on board aid flights from Japan and Australia also reported infections. The lockdown began at 05:00 GMT on Wednesday, days after the Pacific island nation began receiving foreign aid in the wake of a deadly volcanic eruption that also generated a tsunami around the Pacific. Disaster-hit Tonga has gone into lockdown after detecting its first community transmissions of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.