Samoa Prime Minister, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa is urging the public to continue to take heed of COVID-19 preventative measures.
Fiame said “We continue to follow all preventative measures as advised by our public health authorities like wearing a mask, frequent washing of hands and physical distancing.”
She added that without COVID-19 vaccines, natural herd immunity will not be able to sufficiently restore our society to its normal status quo.
“We know that getting vaccinated helps to break the chain of the spread, reduce the variants, protects others and promote assurances that even if we do get sick, the severity of the disease is minimal.”
Samoa PM made the comments while receiving 112,000 doses of Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine from the Government of Japan.
The vaccine has been provided through the COVAX Facility to strengthen Samoa’s vaccination rollout.
Apart from Japan, the Government of Australia provided 50,000 doses and the Government of New Zealand provided 25,000 doses of AstraZeneca to Samoa.
Samoa remains COVID-19 free.