This book was to have ended at the last chapter, but life, it turns out, is a long series of bookends and generations. Writing Sāmoa’s story from 1899 to 1999 was an arbitrary choice, based on coincidence and rich tomes along the way. Sāmoan life, meanwhile, ignored bookends. There were elections and assorted scandals, politicians came and went. Cyclones and tsunamis changed physical landscapes and killed people. Cyclones could have been the result of epoch defining climate change while a 2009 tsunami that killed 192 people was a mix of geography and living too close to dangerous coastlines. Part of life almost. There was another striking set of bookends exactly one hundred years apart: 1918 influenza epidemic, and a 2018 measles epidemic. And given that Covid-19 followed the latter, this chapter is necessary.
Around 2000 people live in Safotu, on the rocky northern-most coast of Savai’i. Home to colonising Tongans, it has long played a role in the political life of Gagaifomauga. It hosts the district hospital and it was there, on 6 July 2018, that Marieta Tuisuesue was headed with her year-old-daughter Lannah Callysta for her mumps, measles and rubella shot, ‘the MMR vaccine’. When they reached, another year old child was waiting for his MMR; Opalameko Opa Si’u, fourth child of Punipuao and Timu’a Siu. Lannah was called for the MMR, administered by a trainee nurse. Following the shot Lannah and her mother headed out to a bus. On the way Marieta noticed the baby’s body felt cold, her eyes could not open properly and her legs were spasming outwards. She rushed back into the hospital where nurses attempted to help her. Lannah died. Other nurses immediately suspected the MMR but experienced nurse Leutogi Te’o continued with the work, vaccinating Lameko. He then died. In due course registered nurses Luse Emo Tauvale, 59, also known as Lusi Uili, and Leutogi Te’o were arrested. They pleaded guilty to manslaughter before Supreme Court Justice Vui Clarence Nelson, one of the first generation of Sāmoa born judges to sit on the bench.
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