There are places in this world where you can shake shake the hands or hug. Where children are allowed in the school and on playgrounds, and sitting in the evening in Restaurants or Bars. Where people go in the morning is quite normal to work and in the afternoon back home. There are still places in this world where much is still as it was before the Corona-crisis.
One of these places is called Nauru . The almost circular island is located in the middle of the Pacific ocean, near the Equator and is the third smallest state in the world, just larger than the Vatican and Monaco. Almost 13 000 people living on 21 square kilometers. The nearest island to the neighboring country of Kiribati, there are 292 kilometres, to the Australian continent for nearly 3000.
The geographical Isolation these days is a blessing for Nauru. So far out on the ocean, it has managed to the Virus. Nauru is considered to be corona-free Zone. And the government is doing all it can to ensure that it remains so.
the island is defending itself against Corona
If President Lionel Aingimea talks about it, it sounds as if his island of a war fleet besieged, loaded their cannons with viruses and on the coast has directed would. “It is an enemy without a sense of proportion, without control, everything he does is devour. And what he devours the health of a country is, the economy of a country,” he says in a Video Interview with the German press Agency. This “battle” can win, the people in Nauru it is only together that. “Everyone must participate in this fight.”
The defensive measures have already begun in mid-March. Nauru Airlines flies since then, no other Pacific Islands. Now only every two weeks for a flight to the Australian city of Brisbane and back – it used to be three per week. The approximately 50 passengers and crew members, the land with these machines, will be exposed for 14 days in a quarantine centre inter. Who flu symptoms will be tested. So far, all the Tests were negative.
see also: Corona-crisis in the News Ticker of FOCUS Online
In the port of Nauru to put in cargo ships, the crew may, however, decontaminated, not the ship, the cargo is. The local population has left in the last four weeks hardly anyone on the island. “We are not very sure that we have the Coronavirus is still on our island,” says the President of the former German colony in the Pacific.
The pathogen has spread in the past three months, so rapidly all over the globe as hardly a Virus before. 13. January has been confirmed in Thailand, the first Corona is the case, outside of the country of Origin of China. Since then have been added within three months, and 180 more countries.
In these 15 States, there are officially no Corona-cases
Nauru is according to the statistics of the Johns Hopkins University in the USA, and is one of only 15 countries in this world, are spared. In all of these countries are geographically isolated or politically isolated States . Not at all, you can be sure that they are actually corona free.
- Of the 55 countries in Africa, only the southern mountain Kingdom of Lesotho and archipelago of the Comoros off the coast of Mozambique are considered to be not of Covid-19 affected, which could also be due to lack of test facilities together.
- North Korea had already been cut in February its only sporadic transport links to foreign countries and declared it a “national existence”, to prevent the spread of the Virus. Whether this is actually managed, is abroad, but because of the close trade and smuggling connections to China doubts.
- Central Asia have reported Tajikistan and Turkmenistan still no cases. Turkmenistan is similarly isolated, such as North Korea, but in the South a long border with the heavily-affected Iran. The state leadership is in any case to demonstrate all of the trouble to the outside: We are healthy. On world health day last week, hundreds of people in sports clothes, drove to the country the color green on their bicycles together through the capital.
- The ten other countries are all island States in the Pacific . You can’t be because of the very clear number of inhabitants and the very strict immigration controls are relatively sure that the Virus is actually there yet. But it can go well in the long term?
researcher: “It is unrealistic that the risk is Zero”
The Australian health researcher Meru Sheel of the University of Canberra, the strict entry requirements have reduced the risk of virus import on the Pacific Islands is very strong. But they could not dispel it even with the toughest measures. “We want to be optimistic, but it is unrealistic to say that the risk is Zero.” The island States could become self-sufficient and were dependent on supplies from abroad.
“you can’t separate these countries, be it politically, socially or economically,” says Sheel. “There will always be the risk of the introduction, as long as the Virus circulates in any part of the earth.”
Individual island States in the Pacific are already
affected Individual island States in the Pacific, it has also been caught, for example, Fiji , with its almost 100 000 inhabitants, where there are now 16 cases. The also observed that the government of Nauru, and is preparing for the possible case of a disaster.
The island hospital was staffed already been reinforced and in the next few days Aingimea to regulate his countrymen, and after the behavior in a way that the States are in the Corona-usual: Two meters distance, Waving instead of shaking hands, Wearing protective masks. “You can’t really say that Isolation alone is not the solution. You just have to be productive in the fight against the Virus,” says the President. More to the Coronavirus
In FOCUS Online/Wochit In the
rob/dpa
