Still spared by the Covid-19 epidemic, New Caledonia intends to remain so. The Overseas Department will adopt on Wednesday a draft deliberation “imposing compulsory vaccination for anyone entering the territory”. The collegiate government also announced “a strengthening of the entry criteria, which will become much more rigorous”.
This turn of the screw comes at a time when the health protocol currently in force, which imposes seven days of isolation in a hotel for passengers vaccinated with messenger RNA and 14 days for the unvaccinated, has just been weakened by court decisions. Several people were able to leave isolation prematurely, without a PCR test or serology carried out in Nouméa.
Less than 30% of the eligible population vaccinated
Other appeals being on the way, the pro-independence president of the government, Louis Mapou, this weekend suspended a flight from Tokyo, operated by the local company Air Calédonie International. The passengers, “in the great majority of the military”, in fact did not embark in Paris for the first section of the journey to Japan, provided by Air France.
“Determined not to put the Caledonian population at risk”, the executive recalled that “the only solution remains vaccination”. While less than 30% of the eligible population is vaccinated, the authorities fear in the event of the introduction of the virus, a catastrophic scenario similar to that which strikes Polynesia or the West Indies. Last week, the minimum air service to the archipelago, along with a sanitary lock, was extended until December 31.
Debate around border protection
While a third referendum on independence will take place on December 12, border protection has sparked a pass of arms between the FLNKS and the “Loyalists” coalition. Criticizing “the State and a contemptuous justice”, the separatists evoked the solution “to cancel all the flights of Metropolis” while their adversaries recalled that “without France”, there would be neither vaccine, nor airlock, “funded by a grant”.
For its part, the Medef deplored this “politicization” of the Covid-19 and called for a collective preparation plan to “live with the virus which will enter at one time or another”.