24 Aug 2021

Cook Islands ramps up Covid testing

4:48 pm on 24 August 2021

The Cook Islands government is ramping up its Covid-19 testing at alert level 2 in response to the delta outbreak of Covid-19 in New Zealand.

People waiting at the airport in Rarotonga on the first day of the travel bubble with New Zealand.

Photo: RNZ / Nick Truebridge

The travel bubble between New Zealand and the Cook Islands is still suspended and testing has resumed today to safe guard Rarotonga and the outer islands from the virus.

Travel to the Cook Islands halted last week after New Zealand announced its first community case of Covid-19 as the county went into Alert Level 4 lockdown.

Only flights carrying freight are arriving and departing from Auckland to Rarotonga and the return flights are bringing passengers back to New Zealand.

The Cook Island government has asked that all passengers who arrived in the Cook Islands between the 2nd and 16th of August be tested for Covid-19.

So far nearly two-thousand tests have been processed and all have come back negative.