As a Covid outbreak worsens, Fiji’s Olympic athletes fly to Japan on a plane full of fish.
As Fiji battles one of the fastest-growing coronavirus outbreaks in the world, the Pacific Island’s Olympic team departed on Thursday for Tokyo on a freight plane.
Their fellow passengers? A shipment of frozen fish.
The coronavirus outbreak had thwarted plans to get the athletes to Japan on regular planes after almost all passenger flights from the country were suspended until the end of July. Only a select number of repatriation and freight flights have been allowed to depart.
The country has been pummeled by the Delta variant of the virus, with an average of 57 daily new cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks, according to a New York Times database. Just over 6 percent of the population is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.
So arranging travel was a “logistical challenge,” Lorraine Mar, the chief executive of the Fiji Association of Sports and National Olympic Committee, told The Associated Press. The solution: a freight plane hauling mostly frozen seafood, with just enough passenger space for the athletes and other officials.
