American Samoa tightens repatriation criteria

The American Samoa Covid-19 Taskforce is toughening its policy on repatriations.

It said it wanted to focus on getting legitimately stranded residents on future repatriation flights while other categories of travellers would be required to pay the full cost of both travel and quarantine.

The taskforce estimated that of the nearly 2000 people who had registered for repatriation flights, less than half qualified as legitimately stranded residents.

And those included people who departed the territory in 2019 and early 2020 before the border closures in March of last year.

Taskforce Chair, Lieutenant Governor Talauega Eleasalo Ale, said the next repatriation flights would focus on bringing stranded residents home.

Talauega said the government, in a gesture to help alleviate stranded residents' financial hardship due to the unplanned border closure, would assist in their repatriation, but they were still expected to pay $US500.

Only a handful of people on the two repatriation flights in February and March had covered their share of the costs.

Based on information from the first two repatriation flights, the cost of quarantine on an individual basis was around $4800 per head.

The next repatriation flight from Hawaii is schedule for 15 April.