Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The Dept. of Health (DoH), during its presentation at Tuesday afternoon’s COVID-19 Task Force meeting offered three recommendations for consideration, including reinstating test-to-travel protocols for travelers to and from Manu’a.

This requirement was lifted last month, as the number of COVID-19 positive cases in the Manu’a island group remained steady and the count on Tutuila also remained low. However, there’s been a huge spike in positive cases in American Samoa for the week of June 27 to July 3 totaling 317, and that includes 26 new positives in Manu’a.

At the task force briefing, Lt. Gov. Talauega Eleasalo Ale, who is also the Governor’s Authorized Representative, noted that he is not in favor of the DoH recommendation but is willing to listen to the medical community, according to ASG officials who attended the meeting.

Talauega, who is also the task force chairman, said that DoH has staff in Manu’a to take care of residents in the island group for now to “let the travelers go without testing” — but he is open for further discussions from the task force members.

There were suggestions from task force members to continue to monitor the situation in Manu’a. DoH noted that most of the new positive cases in Manu’a were from a funeral held on Ta’u island, and this included the two new cases on Ofu island traced to individuals who attended the same funeral, according to ASG officials at the meeting.

DoH also recommended, during its presentation to continue to emphasize to the public to wear masks in areas where physical distancing is not possible — i.e. in ASG facilities, and offices — and to release public messages to the community that COVID cases are going up again.

There was a lot of discussion involving the spike in the number of cases, with DoH pointing out that given the easing of restrictions, there is an uptick in cases, and a surge is slowly but steadily increasing.

Talauega supports pushing out public service announcements to remind people to mask up, social distance and washing their hands. He is concerned with the reported number of positive cases, as the territory is now in the summer months.

During the task force news conference last week, the news media raised several times concerns over the increase in positive cases — at the time there were 139 positives reported for the week of June 20-  26 compared to 72 cases in the previous week.

Talauega pointed out there are a “very few areas where masking is mandated but the rest of the time, we are strongly encouraging people to mask-up when they are out in public.”

“So if you go into a store with a lot of people not wearing masks, and if you are concerned about that, then you should wear your mask,” he said. “I know I do, because I’m concerned about getting the virus or spreading it, in case I have it. Fortunately, so far I have not.”

“But we have moved away from mandating masking all the time,” he said noting that the current COVID-19 Emergency Declaration identifies areas where masking is mandatory, such as schools, daycare centers, and airlines or boats coming into American Samoa.

He also said that masking is mandatory if it’s required within any church or any business that requires people to wear a mask. “If that private business wants you to wear a mask before entering, you need to follow their requirements,” he said. (Samoa News notes that a majority of stores have notices on their front door requiring wearing a mask to enter.)

“But otherwise, what we are doing is slowly lifting some of the restrictions put in place to protect us, now that we reached a stage that we believe that we have some control over the virus. We are lifting some of these restrictions so that people can enjoy the freedoms of walking around,” he added.