PALAU
Posted on 08/25/2020 1:50:37 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
These islands did what no other country managed to: keep the coronavirus wholly out of their borders.
Across the globe, there are only 10 United Nations member countries with no recorded COVID-19 cases.
All Pacific Ocean islands, they are Palau, Micronesia, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Samoa, Vanuatu and Tonga, the New York Post reported.
While the rest of the world fights the coronavirus, these assorted isles and archipelagos boast the honour of successfully managing to keep the novel virus at bay.
But in order to do that, they’ve had to aggressively close their borders, and in the process, restrict tourism dollars vital to their economies and imperilling business owners’ livelihoods.
Still, even those looking at fiscal despair feel their government made the right move in temporarily sacrificing the economy in the name of keeping out COVID-19.
“I think they did a good job,” Brian Lee, co-owner of a nearly 40-year-old hotel on Palau, told the BBC of the government’s decision to functionally close, and keep closed, the republic’s borders since March.
Still, if Palau’s borders do not open soon, even with the nation’s public financial support, he may have to shutter his business.
“I can stay for another half-a-year,” said Mr Lee, who usually enjoys a 70 to 80 per cent occupancy rate but now finds himself struggling to keep his 20-plus person staff busy.
“Then I may have to close.”
The Marshall Islands anticipates losing over 700 jobs as a result of the pandemic, many in hospitality as well as the fishing industry, where strict quarantine restrictions have contributed to what some reports estimate as a 50 per cent depletion in exports.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
As long as COVID-19 survives, even in mutated form, it will eventually reach these countries.
RE: As long as COVID-19 survives, even in mutated form, it will eventually reach these countries.
Unless they seal their countries forever to the rest of the world... ( Think: Shang-rila ).
When they open their borders, the virus will arrive.
The only way to say that, with 100% certainty, is to have effectively tested each person within each country, each day.
I somehow doubt that is even remotely (pun intended) close to possible.
Now, can they say they have had no hospitalizations for Wuhan-19? Sure.
The virus isn’t going away. That’s the nature of a virus. They can’t seal themselves off forever.
More from the lie that the only successful response to the Wuhan is no cases whatsoever.
So dangerous.
These islands have no immunity. When they inevitably get hit, it’s going to be bad. Their only hope is a vaccine before it hits. Even then the vaccine will only be partially effective.
I’m stunned that the major metropolitan cities of Palau have reported no cases. Outstanding!
I’ve seen bigger bird-droppings than these “countries”, though they are beautiful and cost a lot of American lives to take some of them in WW2.
.
Its called faking it (like China with its faux statistics) or not bothering (a political hot potato anyway if not jsut nobody to do the counting and reporting).
‘Cases’ in the US are largely only what ‘tests’ show as a positive (not even symptoms, let alone hospitalization or deaths).
How many are places where ‘old peole’ (the majority of fatalities) have already died off because of non-existant health care and bad sanitation ????
.
They must have really good masks.
“‘Cases’ in the US are largely only what ‘tests’ show as a positive (not even symptoms, let alone hospitalization or deaths).”
Precisely. Raw number of cases (positives) is meaningless. Only hospitalizations/deaths count. Do universal throat swabs for herpes and see what we get.
I was on that beach in Vanuatu 4 years ago. Champagne beach is an amazing beach on an amazing island populated with amazing people. I’ve thought about returning every day since coming home.
Oops! Correction: That’s the beach at Port Olry. My bad. (Same island, though)
Are they actually testing people or are they just assuming?
Pssstt...it will get there sooner or later...
That or what I will call SARS 3
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