We got lucky with covid-19 here. A flight stopped here on the way to Fiji, and a flight attendant and passenger from that flight went on to test positive after arriving in Fiji, so while we did briefly have covid in the country it never managed to get a foothold. Passengers from the flight, fearing what might happen in quarantine spread far and wide into villages and the forest (not that there was was anything set up for quarantine at the time anyway). Because the authorities were unable to contact and test these passengers they had no choice but to lock down the entire country. Lockdown was surprisingly well managed. People were to stay at home unless going out for essentials, much like in NZ. After a few weeks these restrictions were eased to allow some gatherings such as church as it looked like we had dodged the bullet, and so we just remain with borders locked but otherwise life is pretty normal here except for the lack of tourists.
With no tourist spending and few remittances from overseas seasonal workers things are a bit tight here. Many businesses that rely on tourists have closed. There is a programme providing free vegetable seedlings for people to grow more food locally, but the locals are pretty good at providing for themselves without income anyway, so while some are unable to pay for their power they aren't starving.
Air NZ still has a flight once a week delivering supplies from New Zealand and doing repatriation flights on the return leg but I think they return largely empty. We could return home at any stage now really but there doesn't seem a lot of point right now in returning to New Zealand so we just watch most of the world implode through stupidity and selfishness.
My experience with covid is mostly through my covid tracker at http://offloop.net/covid19/ (which over 50,000 people have used now), although I did briefly wear a homemade mask into town during the lockdown. Otherwise it's fairly surreal watching from afar. We made the most of eating in restaurants in town while the rest of the world was unable to.
Fiji was the first to open its borders to yachties who in some cases had been stranded with nowhere to go. Local business owners here had tried to encourage the government to open our borders to them first to capitalise on yacht dollars, but Tonga is not really a proactive sort of place so Fiji has beaten us to the punch.
With about 100 yachts making their way to Fiji now it was no surprise that we started to see the first of those making emergency stops here on the way. Last week two vessels called in here either for repairs or to shelter from the weather. Despite warnings this was going to happen sooner or later the government was totally unprepared and it was all the talk of the town. Would they be arrested and fined? In the end customs made a pragmatic call to have them anchor in a bay away from town, guarded by the army to ensure they didn't land. They were not allowed any supplies and a couple of days later went on their way without a fine and without any contact with authorities. They have invalidated their clearance to go to Fiji now by stopping here on their way so who knows how that will play out when they arrive but they are out of our hair anyway.
Maria and Edwardo from the other side of the island have been stuck in Spain since the outbreak. Villiami, a local, has returned to the island to look after their place, and was also to briefly care for Emma, a dog belonging to some visiting sailors who had to duck home for several weeks. Of course they got trapped by the outbreak as well so Emma has been here all year now gaining her land legs after living on a yacht. Villiami looks after her most of the time but every Friday she appears at our place when Villiami goes into town and usually hangs out for a few days at a time. Nitro, our cat, hates her with a passion.
A couple of days ago Emma flushed a pig out of the forest making for my first visual sighting of a pig on the island - that I have long been seeking. However, this was just a young pig so now we have the mystery of whether there was actually more than one pig on the island, or perhaps Villiami has imported one or more pigs to the island, as he had done in the years before we arrived. They were all (bar the one mystery pig?) removed by the time we arrived so I'm hoping this isn't the beginnings of another pig empire as they really churned up the forest floor last time.
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