The Ministry of Health is unable to pinpoint the origins of Samoa’s first community case of COVID-19 with authorities hoping further tests in New Zealand will assist their inquiry.

The Acting Director General of Health, Tagaloa Dr. Robert Thomsen, said they have sent samples to New Zealand for further testing and hope the results can provide some clarity on the case. 

“We have tried to trace back contacts for the individual and there is no clear indication on how the virus got out in the community,” said Tagaloa, in response to a question asked during a virtual press conference on Monday. “For the meantime the Ministry is trying to concentrate on our screening process. 

“It is not an easy question that we can answer at this stage but we are sending samples to New Zealand with hope they can assist us on that.” 

Pressed further by the media to clarify if COVID-19 has been in the community but was undetected until last Thursday, the Acting Director General said he would not speculate. 

“We are gathering information to look into that,” he said. “But as mentioned earlier I’m not going to answer that and I will not speculate.” 

An American missionary – who has been a resident in Samoa prior to the emergence of COVID-19 globally in early 2020 – tested positive last Thursday. She went to the national hospital at Moto’otua for a test as part of travel requirements to fly out of Samoa last weekend, and became the country’s first community case after her results came back positive.

As of Monday morning the Ministry of Health confirmed 196 active cases – 85 were new community cases.

Local doctors believe that the virus had already been out in the community, before the first community case was detected last Thursday. The country went into a snap lockdown under Alert Level 3 on Saturday while allowing people to stock up their supplies on Friday. 

Before the detection of the first community case last week, there were several breaches of state of emergency (S.O.E.) orders at quarantine sites, and lapses on isolation procedures for frontline workers resulting in positive cases. 

Just last week the Ministry of Police and Prisons confirmed a security guard and a taxi driver breached S.O.E. orders when they went into quarantine sites and were in contact with five passengers from the 6 March 2022 repatriation flight from New Zealand. 

In a separate incident earlier last month, another official driver at one of the quarantine sites and a nurse left the facility and went to use an ATM. In January some frontline workers who worked to service a charter flight from Australia went home after work and were instructed to go into quarantine three days later. The increase in the number of positive cases detected on that flight prompted a nationwide lockdown.