The Prime Minister of the Tonga archipelago, Pohiva Tuionetoa, on Saturday (October 30) warned his fellow citizens living in the main island, Tongatapu, that they risked being confined next week after the discovery of a first case of coronavirus.
This small Pacific kingdom was until now one of the few countries in the world to have escaped the Covid-19 epidemic.
This first contamination was detected in a person in isolation returning to Tonga after a stay in New Zealand.
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"The reason the containment will not happen as early as this weekend is that I have been warned that the virus takes more than three days to develop in an infected person before it becomes contagious,"
said explained the prime minister.
"We need to use this time to prepare in case we are sure that more people are infected,"
he added.
Most of the 106,000 people who make up Tonga's population live on the island of Tongatapu, and less than a third have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19.
The infected person had received a second injection of the vaccine in mid-October according to health officials.
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