Fiji will continue plans on Wednesday to reopen its borders to international visitors despite the threat from the omicron variant of covid-19, announced Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama.
Fiji had set December 1 as the day it would once again welcome foreign visitors to boost its economy, dependent on tourism and devastated since the pandemic forced the territory to close its borders in March of last year.
Bainimarama told Parliament that the omicron variant would not change plans and that he would personally take the first Fiji Airways flight from Australia on Wednesday morning.
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“We are continuing to come out of this terrible pandemic that we have been suffering and have only just begun to recover from the economic devastation,” he told Parliament this Monday (29).
The omicron variant shook world markets and led some countries to tighten their border controls, such as Israel and Japan, which closed their doors to international travelers.
Fiji tightened restrictions on arrivals from South Africa, but did not change the rules for countries that regularly send tourists to the paradisiacal Pacific country.
These include Japan, New Zealand, the United States and France, as well as other countries where the variant has already been detected, such as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Bainimarama said he was confident that with 90% of the adult population vaccinated, Fiji could contain any outbreak of the coronavirus as long as strict sanitary protocols are adhered to.
Visitors must have a complete vaccination schedule and have a negative covid-19 test.
Once in Fiji, they must stay in designated areas where tour operators will have to be vaccinated.
Fiji spent a year free from covid-19 before a devastating second wave caused by the delta variant killed nearly 700 of its population of one million.
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