Kia Orana
Te Marae Ora (TMO) wishes to provide the following update:
The Cook Islands remains COVID-19 free.
The two Air New Zealand flights that arrived this afternoon were not carrying passengers.
These two planes, together with the one that didn’t depart last night are due to leave Rarotonga this afternoon carrying around 800 passengers.
A Ministerial order that requires flights to the Pa Enua to be cargo only flights, with returning flights able to transport passengers and cargo to Rarotonga remains in place.
This same Ministerial Order (which expires at 11.59 on Monday 23rd August) requires all indoor or outdoor events and social gatherings, whether in a private or public setting to be restricted to a maximum of 100 people. For larger events (over 100 people) an exemption must be obtained from the Secretary of Health. All events at which 10-100 people will be in attendance must be registered with Te Marae Ora.
One testing location was operating Rarotonga today – at Constitution Park, where over 200 people were swabbed, between 9am and 4pm today.
Please remember, if you got tested today, you are required to self-isolate until you get a negative test result.
There will not be any testing stations operating tomorrow, testing will resume on Monday and locations will be advised tomorrow afternoon. Anyone displaying any symptoms is advised to call Te Marae Ora on one of the numbers below and a test will be arranged.
Over the last five days, 1788 swabs have been processed, all returning negative results.
In line with New Zealand extending the dates around Locations of Interest (locations of interest on the Ministry of Health website (2-16 August CKT), and in the interests of taking a precautionary approach, Te Marae Ora would like all passengers who arrived in the Cook Islands between 2-16 August 2021, and have not already done so to get a COVID-19 test.
The Te Marae Ora the numbers are: 57481, 57482, 57486, 56199 – and 29 664 and 29 110 extn 717.
We do want to hear from you and appreciate your patience if your call doesn’t get answered straight away.
ENDS: For more information, please visit www.health,gov.ck or contact Jaewynn McKay; jaewynn.mckay@cookislands.gov.ck +682 55486