One year since the first case of Covid-19 in Niue; statistics by village
Several nurses from Samoa will arrive next month to help with the staff shortage at the Health Department
Last week marked the first year since the virus was first detected at the border in Niue on March 8th last year, the single case was contained in home isolation.
Since then, a total of 792 cases have been detected on the island, some of those are visitors.
The Health Department published the number of Covid-19 cases by the village. Alofi South, being the largest village, is the only village where the number of cases exceeded 100.
| Village | Number of Covid-19 cases |
| Alofi South | 182 |
| Tamakautonga | 83 |
| Hakupu | 80 |
| Alofi North/Avatele | 61 |
| Visitors | 55 |
| Tuapa | 51 |
| Vaiea | 49 |
| Lakepa | 46 |
| Liku | 40 |
| Mutalau | 38 |
| Makefu | 21 |
| Toi | 13 |
| Hikutavake | 10 |
| Namukulu | 2 |
Last month, Cabinet passed the Immigration Covid-19 Regulations on the 9th of February to expire in June this year.
These regulations provide the legal mandate for the Immigration office to regulate the travel requirements of passengers coming to Niue.
It provides a list of persons exempted from the conditions of entry such as people with diplomatic immunity, aircrew and ship crew members, NZ Defence Force personnel on an official visit, and emergency medical staff such as medivac teams.
The regulations also provide for a process by which a person may apply to the Chief Immigration Officer for a waiver of any of the travel conditions and the waiver may be granted with the approval of the Director of Health.
“The Chief Immigration Officer may, with the approval of the Director of Health, waive a condition of entry if the Officer considers that waving the condition is unlikely to cause undue risk to the people of Niue”.
Further, “The condition requiring persons to be fully vaccinated by be waived on the ground in regulation, only if a vaccine is contraindicated for the person and a suitable alternative vaccine is not readily available”.
BCN News contacted the government to ask for the total of number of passengers that have applied and were granted waivers or exemptions but the Acting SOG Gaylene Tasmania said it was not necessary at this point to reveal those numbers and that “Waivers have been (granted) on compassionate and humanitarian grounds.”
Tasmania said that these regulations will likely be reviewed before the end of June.
The total number of active cases on the island today is two, after one new case was detected yesterday.
