MAJURO — Two-and-a-half-years to the day that the Marshall Islands shut its borders to stay free of Covid the country will reopen to international travel.
The Marshall Islands was one of the last countries in the world with travel restrictions that had allowed it to stay Covid-free. The border closure — which at one time required 28 days of quarantine to enter — will end Thursday September 8, the government’s Cabinet announced Thursday.
A Covid Omicron BA.5 outbreak started August 8 and within several days, the country of 42,000 people was recording over 1,000 cases daily. But almost as fast as it took off, BA.5 petered out. Three weeks into the outbreak, over 35 % of the country — 15,000 people — had tested positive. But since then the numbers dropped off.
“For the first time since August 8, we had zero cases of Covid-19 reported on Majuro,” said Health Secretary Jack Niedenthal Friday. “That doesn’t mean Covid-19 is gone, it just means that at all of our testing centers, every person tested by our Health teams from 3 p.m. Wednesday to 3 p.m. Thursday tested negative.”
With the outbreak waning, the Cabinet met Thursday afternoon and decided to lift border restrictions that had been in place since March 8, 2020 starting September 8. The only requirement still in place is travelers must show proof of full Covid vaccination to board a flight to the Marshall Islands. On arrival in the Marshall Islands, passengers will be tested for Covid, said a statement issued by the government Friday. Anyway testing positive will be required to isolate at home or in a hotel for five days.
“We still expect to see cases,” Niedenthal said. “It could be that some people are still testing positive at home and possibly not reporting, or it could mean that people are adjusting and understanding that if you have mild symptoms of Covid-19, just stay at home and take Tylenol. Either way, it is very encouraging news for us on the frontlines and for our community here on Majuro.”
The government also announced that the school year, which was scheduled to open the week the Covid outbreak started, could now start next week. Public schools are expected to return to session September 12, according to an announcement by Education Minister Wilbur Heine at parliament Thursday. The College of the Marshall Islands started in-person classes Monday this week, and private elementary and high schools are expected to start in-person classes in the next two weeks.
While the Marshall Islands this week moved to open its borders, neighboring Federated States of Micronesia, which has Covid community spread in three of its four states, announced Wednesday that the three states that currently have Covid in their communities — Yap, Pohnpei and Kosrae — have opened their borders with no restrictions for inbound passengers. The only requirement is people aged five and up traveling to all four states must be vaccinated against Covid.
Niedenthal said that together with Palau, the Marshall Islands has the world’s lowest rate of death from Covid in the world. He said the Marshalls’ goal of keeping its border shut was to “let science catch up to Covid.” By the time Covid found its way into the country in early August, the Marshall Islands had a high vaccination rate, access to a large supply of the Covid drug PaxLovid, and equipment and supplies on hand to respond to the outbreak, he said.
Of the 17 deaths attributed to Covid through September 1, “almost all were people who were either unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated,” he said. In addition, 13 of the 17 were dead on arrival before they got to the hospital, meaning they did not receive any medical care.
“The fatality rate for the Marshall Islands is 0.11%, which is one of the best in the world and only equaled by Palau,” he said. If the Marshall Islands had the same rate of deaths from Covid as the United States, at 1.1%, “we would have had 165 deaths over the last three weeks.” He noted that Fiji’s fatality rate for Covid-19 was higher at 1.3% that would have meant 195 deaths for the Marshall Islands.
“This is why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control called our Covid-19 outbreak response here in the Marshall Islands ‘unprecedented,’” Niedenthal said Friday. “This is because even though we had the fastest Covid-19 outbreak the world has ever seen with only very meager resources to do battle with, we still managed to put the outbreak down in record time.”
The Health Secretary was effusive in recognizing “our healthcare workers and their dedication to our people during these trying times, working many, many hours even though their families and sometimes they themselves were also sick. Overall our government and our community responded with equal grace, along with our many donors and partners. We pulled together like no other country in the world, and this is not an opinion, it is based on statistical facts.”
Following last month’s Covid outbreak, the Marshall Islands announced Thursday it is opening its borders Sept. 8. Health Secretary Jack Niedenthal, center, joined with Taiwan Ambassador Jeffrey S.C. Hsiao, fourth from right, Taiwan Embassy staff and Ministry of Health officials to accept a donation of Covid supplies and equipment last month.
