French Polynesia is due to welcome an additional 100 doctors and nurses from France on Friday to help with the care of Covid-19 patients.
More than 400 people with the virus are in territory hospitals which are now full after a sharp increase in infections.
So far, the pandemic has claimed 446 lives and more than 40,000 people have contracted the virus.
An exterior view of the French Polynesia Taaone Hospital in Papeete. - The coronavirus seemed to have almost disappeared from French Polynesia between March and July. But with the Delta variant, it returned with unprecedented violence, saturating the Tahiti hospital centre within a month. Photo: AFP or licensors
In announcing the additional support, the French High Commissioner, Dominique Sorain, said France was responding to repeated appeals for help, after it had already sent two small teams last month.
The main hospital in Tahiti said it needs about 200 extra staff, such as doctors, nurses and carers because of the large number of patients in intensive care.
It had appealed to French President Emmanuel Macron to make good on his promise made at the Tahiti hospital in July to protect Polynesians.
The territory's members of the French legislature also urged Paris to send more personnel after France deployed hundreds of medical staff to its departments in the Caribbean.
The French health minister Olivier Veran launched an appeal on his Facebook page for more volunteers to sign up.
According to La Depeche de Tahiti, several health professionals offered their services, but say they were ignored, reportedly for financial reasons.
A lockdown is in its second week and daily eight-hour curfews are in place to control the outbreak.
Tahiti vaccination compulsion challenged in court
Legal challenges are being mounted in both French Polynesia and in France's highest court to quash last month's law adopted in Tahiti, which makes Covid-19 vaccinations for selected groups compulsory.
Photo: AFP
The law gives anyone dealing with the public and individuals deemed to be vulnerable two months to be inoculated or risk a fine of $US1,700 and a suspension of their work contracts.
An injunction is being sought in Papeete as dozens object to the law.
Unions and women's groups said the law has several illegalities and they demanded official recognition of alternative treatments, which they said are effective but discarded in order to make vaccines the only option to deal with Covid-19.
They said the French Polynesian government cannot ignore that it opened the border to American and European tourists while knowing there were new variants of the virus.
Now, they said, the government shifts its shortcomings onto unvaccinated people.
Further, they said it is illegal to administer a medical treatment without a person's consent while the vaccines are still in phase 3, suggesting a patient must agree to taking part in medical research.
About half the population has had one jab.
The French overseas minister Sebastien Lecornu said French Polynesia's pandemic, which claimed more than 200 lives in the past two weeks, is one of the unvaccinated.
He said when he visited a vaccination centre in Bora Bora in July, only a dozen people were there, and many he encountered were evasive when asked about getting vaccinated.
Tahiti urged to adopt NZ, New Caledonia Covid approach
The French Polynesian president Edouard Fritch is being urged to adopt Covid-19 policies used in New Zealand and New Caledonia and close the border.
President Edouard Fritch in Bora Bora Photo: supplied
In an open letter, the pro-independence opposition assembly member Eliane Tevahitua accused him of being unable to manage a health crisis, which is now out of control.
She said New Zealand and New Caledonia have chosen the opposite and manage the border to protect their populations.
Eliane Tevahitua Photo: Tahiti Assembly
In July last year, French Polynesia became the first destination in the South Pacific to open its border for quarantine-free travel, and since then it has had more than 40,000 Covid-19 cases, including 446 deaths.
In making this choice, she said, Mr Fritch made not only a political but also a moral error, putting profit and money ahead of life.
Ms Tevahitua said his recent call to a fast and his incantation for prayers are a sign of his powerless in a situation for which he is largely responsible.
She also called for deferring the re-opening of schools, saying there should be testing of children and isolation for those who have the virus.
Ms Tevahitua also warned of the pandemic's long-term health impact on a population suffering from obesity and diabetes.
New Caledonia has had no Covid-19 related fatality and used a lockdown in March to suppress its only Covid-19 outbreak in the community.