With 23 deaths in the last three days and an incidence rate of 2,252 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, the Covid-19 epidemic has reached dizzying thresholds in Polynesia, where residents believed they were rid of the virus.
“2468, 2476, 2491 and 2492“An agent of the Tahitian Covid platform echoes at the microphone, under the big top of the presidency of French Polynesia. Every five minutes, he announces a series of numbers: people positive for Covid-19. In front of him this Monday afternoon, several hundred Polynesians await their PCR test in this building which is more of a palace than a hospital.
Twenty-three people have died from Covid-19 in the previous three days, the worst series since the start of the epidemic in this overseas community of 280,000 inhabitants. The incidence rate reached a staggering total of 2,252 per 100,000 inhabitants, even exceeding the figures for the Antilles where the pandemic is also wreaking havoc.
Far from having finished with the epidemic
Polynesians shunned the vaccine for several months, believing themselves to be rid of the virus: at the beginning of July, no one was hospitalized, and new daily cases could be counted on the fingers of one hand. But for the past two weeks, they have flocked to vaccination centers, where more than 2,000 doses are administered every day.
I have a case at home so I have contact and then I have flu symptoms, for me nothing serious but I do not want to transmit the virus to my parents, who are in their seventies and not vaccinated.
After a rapid spread of the Delta variant, half of the 412 beds of the Hospital Center are occupied on Monday by Polynesians positive for Covid and 36 patients are in intensive care. According to its director Claude Panero, the hospital must every day “push the walls“. Some patients arrive by plane from other archipelagos, less inhabited and poorly equipped with health structures. But the hospital center is forced to refuse patients. Saturation is also reaching the morgue: next to the hospital, two refrigerated containers make it possible to welcome new bodies.
One in three Polynesians vaccinated
For the hospital and the local government, this dramatic situation is linked to the low vaccination rate. Only one in three Polynesians is vaccinated. And according to the Minister of Health Jacques Raynal, 98% of patients admitted to intensive care are not vaccinated. Diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases and kidney failure, which are very common in Polynesia, increase the risk of developing serious forms.
On Saturday, the presidency turns into a vaccinodrome. All week long, it’s a testing center. “I do one every three minutes: you have to be kind even if it’s a bit of assembly line work“, smiles, behind her mask, a tired nurse who wishes to remain anonymous.
“We are in a critical situation and despite that, some are still against the vaccine because they watch anything on social networks, and they do not respect barrier gestures, since the president himself does not respect them.“, regrets Tere Ena, a 21-year-old student.
A controversial marriage
The student alludes to the wedding party of Vice-President Tearii Alpha during which President Edouard Fritch was filmed providing, without a mask, the musical entertainment in front of several hundred guests, a few days after having banned these festive appointments. For the moment, confinement is limited to Sunday, with many exemptions, in particular to go to mass. The curfew has been in place for a week, from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m.
The tourist industry, the engine of the local economy, is suffering. Fifteen Americans, declared positive for Covid, were unable to board their return flight. Polynesia fears the return of the disaster scenario of the year 2020: it had received three times fewer visitors than in 2019.
At the presidential palace, the exhausted teams put their equipment away. “Here, we tested 2,007 people today, we have strengthened our teams but we are refusing people“, notes the biologist Sophie Olivier while the teams of the presidency disinfect several hundred chairs. The next morning, it will be necessary to start again.
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