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Governor supports Health Dept decision to quarantine FEMA staff

Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga
Still no statement on why he denied entry to US Army Sgt.
fili@samoanews.com

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga says he supports the Health Department’s decision not to waive the full 14-day quarantine requirement for US Federal Emergency Management Agency officials who had entered the territory and urged health officials to continue making the right decisions to safeguard local boarders from the coronavirus pandemic.

The governor addressed briefly the issue with FEMA during the cabinet meeting on Monday this week, but Lolo didn’t respond or provide an explanation to a news report that he made the decision not to allow a US active duty service member  — traveling here for his mother’s funeral — to enter the territory.

Early last week, FEMA pulled out its disaster personnel on the grounds that they would be working remotely with local officials on COVID-19 related matters. The two FEMA staff on the ground left on a military plane along with another FEMA staffer who arrived on island more than a week ago and was placed on a full 14-day quarantine.

FEMA’s pull-out of its ground personnel appears to have all started early this month when a female official from Florida arrived here and was required to undergo full quarantine after local physicians found that although the official had a COVID-19 negative test prior to arrival, she had previously tested positive in Florida. She returned on the same flight back to Honolulu.

A FEMA spokesman told Samoa News last week that the federal agency complied with all local requirements. (See Samoa News edition Aug. 14th for FEMA’s explanation.)

At the cabinet meeting, Lolo said the current work by ASG relating to COVID-19 is not easy especially when it comes to the territory’s relationship with the federal government, including FEMA and the US Department of Interior.

He explained that a lot of time was involved with conference calls with FEMA Region 9 administrator Robert Fenton, regarding current local COVID-19 restrictions including quarantine requirements, which Lolo says is a decision that was made by a DoH physician, which he fully supports.

Lolo recalled that twice he was on the phone with Fenton with one conversation lasting to midnight on a Thursday. The following morning, he held a conference call with Health director Motusa Tuileama Nua and others asking if there was another option they could recommend to address what FEMA was asking.

However, in the end he agreed with concerns from physicians, according to the governor, who noted that the sticking-point was DoH had refused to lower the required 14-day quarantine period for a person who traveled from Florida, through Dallas, then to San Francisco before heading to Hawaii to catch the flight to American Samoa.

Lolo said he explained to Fenton the valid concerns raised by local physicians over this traveler. The governor told cabinet members that a traveler can’t be quarantined for only three days or five-days as requested by the feds but must complete the quarantine process to ensure that American Samoa is not affected by a traveler.

Lolo said FEMA wanted their officials to be released from quarantine after three or five days. “But that will not happen,” he said, adding that quarantine requirements come under the purview of DoH and its physicians who make the decisions that protect American Samoa.

According to the governor, he also held a conference call later with US Assistant Secretary of Interior Doug Domenich and Office of Insular Affairs Director Nikolao Pula — who were informed about American Samoa’s positions and quarantine requirement policy. Lolo said the DOI officials were pleased with the explanation as to why American Samoa took such action in regards to FEMA personnel.

Lolo commended Motusa and DoH physicians for their work and urged them to continue doing the right thing to help protect the lives of people in American Samoa.

Meanwhile, the governor didn’t made any comments or statement during the cabinet meeting — and there has been no official statement from ASG — as to why he denied entry to US Army Sgt. Sanele Lemana.

Radio New Zealand reports that Lemana met all of the health requirements to enter the territory and had boarded a military flight from Honolulu last week to attend his mother’s funeral in the territory.

The news outlets reports that it was the governor who made the decision not to allow Lemana off the plane at Pago Pago International Airport and he returned back to Honolulu on that same flight.