Travelers testing positive still required to isolate upon entry into territory

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Three travelers who arrived on the Monday night, Aug. 22 Hawaiian Airlines flight from Honolulu tested COVID-19 positive upon arrival at Pago Pago International Airport and were placed in isolation in accordance with local protocol, according to a Health Department summary presentation at the COVIVD-19 Task Force meeting Tuesday afternoon.

DoH reports that it received the Hawaiian Airlines passenger manifest on Aug 22 and it showed 278 travelers while the number of passengers registered on ASG’S TALOFAPASS websystem — which screens entry into the territory — for the flight totaled 309.

However, one traveler did not register on TALOFAPASS, but no additional information was provided in the DoH summary report for Monday’s flight as to why this unregistered traveler was allowed to enter the territory, when under local regulations all travelers are required to do so.

And of the 278 passengers tested upon arrival, 275 tested negative while 3 tested positive.

DoH also presented at the task force briefing its weekly report for Aug. 15 to Aug. 21 for airport operations. It states that 357 passengers from 37 flights — operated by Samoa Airways and Talofa Airways disembarked at Pago Pago International Airport from Apia, Samoa.

Of the total travelers, 13 of them tested COVID-19 positive — 9 from Samoa Airways flights and 4 from Talofa Airways flights.

For the same period — Aug. 15 to Aug. 21 — a total of 575 passengers arrived on two Hawaiian Airlines flights from Honolulu, with six travelers testing positive. The positive cases, as well as 1 traveler with close-contact to a positive-traveler, were placed in isolation in accordance with local protocol and this is the same for positive travelers from Samoa.

The report also shows that 2 military flights arrived at Pago Pago with 20 crew members and none of them tested positive. There was one aircraft, which was allowed entry for “gas & go”.

Other issues of interest reported by DoH is that 273 passengers departed Pago Pago for Apia during the same period on Samoa Airways, which operated 16 flights carrying 152 passengers, and on Talofa Airways that operated 21 flights with 121 travelers outbound to Samoa.

Additionally, the two Hawaiian Airlines flights departed with a total of 396 travelers to Honolulu. Furthermore, the two military flights with 20 crew members also departed Pago Pago during the same week.

No data or information was included in the report on DoH’s seaport operations compared to its previous weekly report. And no explanation was available at press time on DoH seaport operations for the week of Aug. 15 to Aug. 21.