PAPE’ETE (RNZ Pacific/Pacnews) — French Polynesia’s president has spoken out for mandatory vaccinations against Covid-19.
Edouard Fritch says there is no other way to deal with the pandemic, and Tahiti cannot afford to close the border for a third time as the territory is financially dead.
He told local media that French Polynesia will have to live with the virus and therefore anyone who is in contact with other people needs to be vaccinated.
French Polynesia closed its borders in March 2020 for four months and Paris ordered them shut again in February for another three months.
Fritch says since May he has lobbied the French High Commissioner to make vaccination compulsory for anyone entering or leaving French Polynesia.
In the past year, more than 19,000 people in the territory caught Covid-19, more than 1,200 people needed hospital care and 144 patients died.
Fritch and six other French Polynesian mayors joined more than 370 French mayors and elected officials across the political spectrum to publicly back President Emmanuel Macron’s Covid-19 policies to contain the pandemic.
In May, the French overseas minister Sebastien Lecornu said that for France to allow French tourists back to Tahiti, 70% of French Polynesians would have to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
The local government in Tahiti has said it plans to have immunized 70% by September.
Edouard Fritch
