Get vaccinated, trust science and be patient. That is the message from Samoans living overseas to their families and friends in Samoa as the nation moves to deal with COVID-19.

Samoa had recently gone through an Alert Level 3 lockdown, impacted many people in the country. 3 Samoans currently residing overseas have shared their experiences of lockdowns and facing the virus and its challenges overseas. 

Papalii Manumalo Alailima is a Pacific island leader residing in America, leading COVID-19 efforts and response in Washington and Oregon.

Papalii told the Samoa Observer on Wednesday that on March 23, 2020, Governor Kate Brown mandated for residents of the state of Oregon to shelter in place until otherwise notified due to the rampant spread of COVID-19 infections, hospitalisations, and deaths throughout the state, nation and world.

"It was scary and worrisome because of the uncertainty of COVID-19 impacts and the thought of will my family and our loved ones be okay and survive this pandemic," Papalii told the Samoa Observer.

"My former partner and I also were parenting our grandchild, who was four at the time, and had no option for pre-school or child care because everything was shut down. So she naturally became part of Zoom work and community organising meetings. making a lot of noise and crawling on top of my head - such a trying, hectic, real life scenario and hilarious time all in one. I only went out for groceries and back into our little COVID-19 bubble of three at home. Every imaginable contact outside of our COVID-19 bubble was done remotely, virtually, electronically or over the phone.

"A lot of Samoan churches did their sauniga virtually to keep folks safe. There was a lot of mental and emotional fatigue.

"Two years ago, I was employed full-time for six years with the Quality Assurance West Division tream for the American Red Cross Biomedical Services, I was fortunate to work remotely but would be required to go into the office tfrom time to time to manually conduct some observations and document for approvals or go out into the field to verify that our blood collections teams have implemented the new safety protocol and process appropriately to protect themselves and donors while collecting blood as safely as possible."

He added that during the evening, weekends or when he was off from work, he would help organise through a 501c3 non-profit organization United Territories of Pacific Islanders Alliance Portland (U.T.O.P.I.A. P.D.X.) that he co-founded and eventually became their first-ever Executive Director of April 2021 to coordinate COVID-19 testing for our community, wraparound services for our people who got infected with no contact rental, utilities and grocery assistance, masks, hand sanitisers, and home cleaners while they recovered and to provide emergency financial relief due to loss wages from losing employment or from reduced hours from work.

Papalii said that their community suffered such a grave loss of lives of family members and loved ones. Every week, there was a family member or close friend who passed away and the coordinating their funeral after funeral.

"It got so bad that at one point, they had to combine funeral ceremonies of people because of the backlog of funerals," Papalii said.

"My former partner and I decided to cancel our wedding that was set for August 1, 2020. Maybe that was a foreboding moment. I personally was not immune from COVID-19's impact and losses my eldest brother, Epati Ala'ilima in Los Angeles, California (another state that is south of Oregon), due to COVID-19 in July 2020.

"His funeral ceremonies were delayed due to family members recovering from COVID-19 until July 30th - August 1st, 2020 (my supposed wedding day). I didn't really get a chance to grieve my brother because there were other people just like me who were losing their loved ones left and right, and I had to get back to Oregon to continue providing the help that our community needed.
He explained that more deaths kept coming throughout 2020 and early quarter of 2021.

"Eventually, it took a toll on me personally and my relationship paid the price for it and my former partner and I ended our five year relationship at the end of August 2021. Fortunately, for the sake of our now five year old and our sanity, we are still friends but have separated and live in different cities in different states," Papalii said.

He explained that Samoans in other regions in America were also impacted, including other Pacific Islanders across the US diaspora.

"The National Pacific Islander COVID-19 Response Taskforce (N.C.I.P.R.T.) convened in April 2020, and I led their Data and Research Council (D.A.R.C.) for a year and a half until September 2021," Papalii said

"In July 2021, the N.P.I.C.R.T. transitioned into the National Association of Pasifika Organisations (N.A.O.P.O.), which is a 501c3 non-profit organization that is comprised of a collective of several statewide Pacific Islander community-based organisations on the continental US and Hawaii that advocates for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders on the national level. and I am their outgoing Executive Director with the term ending at the end of this month."

With mixed views of local Samoans on the current lockdown, Papalii said that he admires the intentional acute awareness and steadfastness of Prime Minister Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa leadership and her administration's stance to place the health, safety and well being of Samoans.

"This utmost priority for the nation of Samoa and to act with such precision and fervour will absolutely save countless Samoan lives," Papalii said.

"We don't have to look far into Samoan history to see the starkly grave outcomes of the Measles epidemic in 2019 and the Spanish Influenza of 1918 to know that with 26 positive COVID-19 cases on Samoa's shores has the potential to become disastrous if not managed properly. When the US was in lockdown, we didn't have the COVID-19 vaccines available.

"Samoa has a hopeful and promising opportunity to get the COVID-19 infection rate under control. With the addition of a lockdown and having the ability to vaccinate eligible residents is the best pathway forward to avoid overwhelming hospitals or even worse multiple deaths from this one event infecting 26 people. Neighbouring Fiji had such a horrific bout with COVID-19 infections, hospitalisations and numerous deaths.

Papalii said that it would be a shame for Samoans to ignore logical indicators of science right before their eyes.

"A virus needs a living host to infect. If you prevent its survivability by not gathering and getting vaccinated to give your immune system a fighting chance to recognise the virus in your body in order to attack it, you are doing the best that you possibly can to slow the spread of COVID-19," Papalii said.

"Please get vaccinated if you haven't already. It is never too late to get vaccinated, and there is no judgment for you to do it now. The lockdown in the US was more than a year. It may take Samoa weeks and at most months to ensure the positive case-rate is brought back down to zero again, but it can be done.

"It may feel like an irritable and frustrating inconvenience to be on lockdown, but I've done it for over a year and am still alive and well. My advice is to remain calm, be patient and embrace a peaceful resolve that you are doing your part to prevent the unnecessary spread of COVID-19 for your family, loved ones, villages, districts and the nation of Samoa."

Asked about his thought at the beginning of the pandemic and the commencement of lockdowns, Papalii said that what they learned was that people were part of the essential workforce such as healthcare, security, emergency responders and were constantly in a position of potentially high risk of exposure.

"In the US, many of them are part of multi-family and multi-generational households - so easily eight or more living together under one dwelling, domicile or congregate setting," Papalii said.

"If one person got infected and brought it home, it would be a devastating effect. The other important factor that we learned from contact tracing of positive cases was that large family gatherings and funerals were the root cause and breeding grounds for super spreader events, which begs the question - do we love our families enough to create a safer alternative to honour a deceased loved one while keeping everyone safe and protected from the virus or do we forego health and safety precaution, protocol and advisory and risk continuing to practice the fa'aSamoa in lieu of certain danger for those in physical attendance?

"Please don't ignore the high risk potential that gathering in-person can present. It is the saddest heartbreak to know of multiple funerals that could have been completely preventable."

Papalii emphasised the importance of getting vaccinated and said he is grateful for the thousands of our people that we have vaccinated and continue to vaccinate here in America.

"Those are lives we are helping to save and protect. God blessed us with the science and scientists that created these vaccines," Papalii said.

"If you don't want to get vaccinated for yourself, please think of the family elders, immuno-compromised family members, or young children who depend on you for their daily living that are fragile and vulnerable. Don't they deserve to benefit from your health and ability to be vaccinated so that they can feel deeply cared for and safe?

"Again, it is never too late to get vaccinated, it will help protect you and your loved ones by lessening the severity and its duration if you are infected, less likely to be hospitalised and ultimately help prevent death. If you care about Samoa's hospitals capacity and medical personnel capacity to not be overburdened or inundated by COVID-19 patients, then please get vaccinated and stay at home until it COVID-19 case-rate is down to zero and clears.

"As I mentioned previously, sure, the lockdown is not the most convenient nor is it probably the most pleasant experience for some to have to stay home, but if it keeps you, your family and loved ones alive and prevents potential contact with an infected person that can lead to possible death, then why not? Why would you risk your life and the lives of the ones that you love in such a way?"

The Executive Director of Samoa Pacific Development Corporation Dr. Jacinta Galea'i, who also works closely with Papalii shared similar sentiments to Papalii emphasising the importance of vaccinations.

Dr. Galea'i told the Samoa Observer on Wednesday that in the early months of the pandemic, Pacific Islanders in Oregon had the highest rates in testing positive and hospitalisations and even death.

"It was like that everywhere Pacific Islanders lived in the US. It was alarming to us and especially to those of us who work with community based organisations," Dr. Galea'i said.

She said that Samoan people are scared due to the number of positive cases but they should trust science, the medical professionals, follow all the protocols, and have faith. 

"Also if they haven’t been vaccinated they should get vaccinated," she said.

Local Samoans have taken to social media expressing their mixed views of the current lockdown, and Dr. Galea'i said that those reactions are to be expected but government officials have a responsibility to not just a few people but the entire country.

"They have to make those hard decisions to save and protect lives. Be patient and thankful that no lives have been lost to the virus in Samoa," Dr. Galeai said.

According to her, in the beginning of the pandemic there wasn’t enough known about how the virus is transmitted which caused a lot of questions and fears to rise.

"We saw what was happening in Italy and then New York and it was scary. I trust science so I follow CDC and your public health experts and do whatever they tell you to do. I supported the early lockdowns because I knew the virus was evolving and the scientists were just learning about it," Dr. Galea'i said.

With a lot of people not vaccinated yet and waiting until.the virus reaches the nation's shores to get vaccinated at the last minute, Dr. Galea'i said that people are humans and that is human behaviour.

"As community organisers all we can is provide the information and access to vaccines, and keep talking to them, even empathise with them for their hesitancy, but at the end of the day people make up their own minds. It can be frustrating," Dr. Galea'i said.

"Trust the science and be patient. We’re all in this together. We prayed for an end to the pandemic so God gave us the vaccine. Just get vaccinated. Vaccines are not new. We’ve had vaccines for polio, measles, Hepatitis, Rubella, Chickenpox.

"The list is long. So what’s the hang-up with the COVID-19 vaccine? Vaccines saves lives. It’s science. God created science."

Lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology in the School of Sports and Recreation Lefaoalii Dion Enari told the Samoa Observer on Wednesday that the government has done well so far to be one of the last countries in the world to get COVID-19.

Also having gone through an experience of a lockdown, Lefaoalii said he had enjoyed it as it allowed him to spend more time with his family and focus on what really matters, which according to him is family love and connectivity.

He explained that the beginning of the pandemic was frightening as there were cases of the virus close to his house, and people he knew started getting COVID-19.

Lafaoalii advices people in Samoa to be careful. He added that he knows people who chose not to get vaccinated and are on life support with COVID-19.

"Sending lots of love to our homeland. Samoa will pull through," Lefaoalii said.