The pandemic has seen coronavirus spread to all corners of the globe – but there are still a handful of destinations that have managed to remain Covid-free two years on.
There are officially five sovereign states still declaring zero cases of the virus, though there are serious doubts over North Korea and Turkmenistan’s claims as neither country has a free press, but tales of lockdowns and outbreaks have been leaked nevertheless.
That just leaves Nauru, Tuvalu and Micronesia, all tiny island nations in Oceania, set in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to the north-east of Australia.
Other islands elsewhere have also stayed Covid-free according to the World Health Organization: Niue, Tokelau, Saint Helena, the Cook Islands and the Pitcairn Islands
Being so far-flung has helped these destinations stay clear of Covid, as have strict border closures that prohibit most international travellers.
Even so, there have been scares since the pandemic began in 2020.
In January 2021, a crew member on a ship visiting Micronesia tested positive for coronavirus. Thankfully it was later proved to be a historical case.
Tuvalu had its own scare in November last year when a traveller from there tested positive upon arriving in New Zealand – it later proved to be a false positive.
The incident caused “panic” in the local community, Tuvalu High Commissioner to New Zealand, Paulson Panapa, said at the time.
“People are really scared you know thinking that there's an outbreak already, that there's already Covid in Tuvalu, but as far as the Tuvalu Ministry of Health is concerned they've assured the people that there is no Covid in Tuvalu,” he told RNZ.
It follows the news that two-thirds of passengers on the first international flight back to one Covid-free island tested positive for the virus on arrival.
The independent island nation of Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean, which had managed to stay Covid-free for the entirety of the pandemic, reopened its borders on 10 January for the first time in 10 months.
A Fiji Airways flight from Fiji to the Kiribati capital of South Tarawa on 14 January was the first aircraft to land after the reopening.
But on-arrival testing showed that 46 of the 54 people onboard were infected with Covid-19.
Travellers were quarantined, but soon afterwards a security guard at the quarantine facility and two members of the public also tested positive, prompting Kiribati’s leaders to announce a four-day island-wide lockdown.
