First Tonga Repatriation Flight Takes Off from New Zealand
4 August 2020
Amended State of Emergency Orders for CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19);
4 August 2020
Covid-19 tests of cruise ship passengers in French Polynesia have all returned negative – two days after a case was detected while at sea.
The Paul Gauguin, with 340 people on board, returned to Papeete yesterday and the tourist testing positive was removed to be placed in isolation.
The French Polynesian President Edouard Fritch said 24 tests of the closest contacts were carried out immediately while the remaining 315 tests of passengers and crew were completed today.
With the results being negative, everybody is allowed to disembark now and won’t have to wait until tomorrow as announced earlier.
The French High Commissioner Dominique Sorain said there were no breaches of the health protocol which required travellers from abroad to test negative no more three days before arriving in Tahiti.
Travellers then have to self-test on the fourth day of their stay.
However, Mr Fritch said from now a Covid-19 test would be added for those wanting to board for a cruise. He said the woman in question who tested positive was asymptomatic.
He said tests would be carried out among the people she had contact with in Bora Bora where the Paul Gauguin was for two days before aborting the cruise.
The ship’s operator, Ponant, was offering several compensation options to the customers whose cruise was cut short.
