I haven’t lived in Vanuatu since 1993. Most of my friends have also moved away. But now and then, I do like to check in on the country and see how things are going.
Good news! As of September 7, there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in all of Vanuatu. The country has a natural advantage. It’s protected by its remoteness. So all they had to do was close its doors. And that’s exactly what they did. On March 26, the government called a state of emergency, stopping all flights and ships from entering the country.
The shutdown has been painful. Tourism is a huge industry. And yet, people seemed to accept that it had to be done. Vanuatu is a poor country with inadequate health infrastructure. There’s a shortage of nurses and experienced doctors. There are only two ventilators in the entire country and no ICU units.
All was going relatively well until April 6 when Cyclone Harold slammed into the northern islands. In the South Pacific, hurricanes (aka typhoons) are called cyclones, and this one was a category 5 with winds of 130 mph. According to Dr. Christopher Bartlett as quoted in The Diplomat, in Luganville, Vanuatu’s second city, up to 80-90% of the structures were blown away.
Even after the cyclone, they kept the lockdown in place. They accepted relief supplies from abroad, but foreign aid workers were not allowed in.
I knew Vanuatu was a vulnerable country. After all, it’s located atop the Pacific Ring of Fire. During the three years we lived there, we experienced a couple of large earthquakes and a cyclone. We visited a bubbling volcano, Yasur Volcano on Tanna Island.
But I didn’t realize until recently that Vanuatu was the country most at risk for natural disasters. The UN University for Environmental and Human Security rated 171 countries for risks from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, storms, floods, droughts, and sea level rise, and Vanuatu came out on top.
I loved living there, though.
We visited Vanuatu as tourists and loved it. Do you know of any charities supporting recovery?
It’s a lovely place for a vacation.
To donate to help support recovery, you might try CARE. Here’s a link.
I’m glad to read that they didn’t have any infections. It must have been really hard on them, if 40% of their economy comes from tourism. Spain couldn’t resist opening up for the summer season and look how they are now… Preparing for lockdown again u_u
I’m sorry to hear that Spain’s numbers have gone up again. The US has been terrible in our response to the pandemic. Spain is even worse now in number of deaths per 100,000. I’m glad China has done so well after a slow start.
I should have said that 40% of the economy IN THE CITIES in Vanuatu is from tourism. Much of the country is subsistence farming.
Beautiful pics! So glad that there are no confirmed cases.
Thank you, Jennifer.
Your post reminds me of my desire to time travel ~ just for quick visits to places we’ve lived to see folks who are no longer there.
Hope the rebuilding on Vanuato restores things to some semblance of order.
LOVE the photo of the surf ~ fabulous color! Worthy of a BATIK! 😀
I loved the varied colors of the water of the ocean and lagoon. They were always changing.
When my daughter moved to Tacoma, WA, I thought it would be nice to drive through Sumner, the little town I lived in during my elementary school years. We couldn’t find our old house, though, not even the street for sure. I freeway had gone through that area. Even without our little gang of neighborhood kids, it would have been nice to see our old house. So yes, time travel. This week there’s a big fire on the edge of Sumner. People are evacuating.
They have done well
Yes, and it seems without a lot of discord.
It’s beautiful. Until I started following you, though, I wasn’t aware that Vanuatu existed. Hooray for Google Maps and WordPress, I guess.
I didn’t know much about Vanuatu either until we decided to go there. It seems there’s always something new to learn from maps. I had assumed that the Philippines was much closer to the equator than Vanuatu because it’s so much hotter. It doesn’t look that much closer, though, on a map. So I used Google. Manila’s latitude is 14.5995° N. Port Vila, Vanuatu’s is 17.7333° S. That’s a little over 3 degrees difference. Is that a big difference? Of course, Manila has lots of concrete structures. Port Vila has the South Pacific Trade Winds.
Here’s another one: Seattle: 47.6062° N, Los Angeles: 34.0522° N. That’s 13.554 degrees difference.
It looks like a beautiful country. They were smart in shutting down. Seems like their residents follows the rules better than we do here in the US. Good luck to them.
Yes, it is a beautiful country. From the articles I read, people were good about going along with the government decision, which is even more notable considering that it was a caretaker government.
Beautiful photos!
The shutdown seems wise. It has kept them from a virus that could decimate the population. Prayers and thoughts are with them though as they weather this storm and others.
I wish I had more photos of Vanuatu. Before cellphones, though, we didn’t take many pictures.
Yes, the shutdown was probably wise, but it was also brave and difficult. I think I read that tourism was 40% of the economy. Hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops, and the airlines must be taking a big hit. On the positive side, they’re building up their own emergency management skills and structures in preparation for future emergencies.