The island of Kiritimati (Christmas) in the Line group conducted a COVID-19 lockdown drill on Thursday 24 February 2022 to test the islander’s readiness should they register a confirmed case of COVID-19.
Kiritimati and its neighbouring inhabited islands of Teraina (Washington) and Tabuaeran (Fanning) island are currently COVID-19 free and had enforced restrictions to domestic inbound travel into the group since COVID-19 broke out in the country’s capital in South Tarawa.
The island is also Kiribati’s leisure tourism hub, renown as a world-class fly-fishing destination and a thriving bird wildlife sanctuary.
The simulation exercise was coordinated by the Kiritimati COVID19 Task Force committee which initiated the mock lockdown based on the scenario that a positive case was confirmed in London Village.
The exercise included a declaration of public emergency on Thursday 24th of February 2022, the activation of the island’s siren for residents to remain indoors and closure of businesses, radio announcement and information dissemination via the island’s COVID-19 Facebook page. The exercise lasted 3 day.
Health and national security officials and representatives from the Ministry of Line & Phoenix Islands Development were mobilized to manage the exercise over the 3 days of trial lockdown.
During this time, the local hospital remained opened but with restrictions to visitors, operating hours for all shops were limited and a mandatory public mask mandate throughout the island was activated.
Tourism Authority of Kiribati (TAK) Tourism Officer Tiuti Biribo says “the public and businesses operators we very cooperative and took the exercise seriously”. He added that this allowed for the successful management of Kiritimati’s first every trial run with a confirmed case of COVID-19 community transmission.
The Task force was chaired and led by the Minister of the Line & Phoenix islands, Honourable Mikarite Temari and included Secretary, Mr Natario Kiaiti and representatives from local government agencies, private sector and faith-based organisations.
