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After escaping the coronavirus for a year and a half, the French island of New Caledonia in the South Pacific experienced a deadly outbreak of the Delta variant in the fall. Now, as an Omicron surge eases, the virus’s disproportionate effect on the territory’s Indigenous Kanak population has become apparent.
Serious coronavirus infections have disproportionately affected New Caledonians of Pacific Island descent, highlighting social inequalities in a territory that is agonizing over whether to break free of France.
Many Indigenous Kanaks have diabetes, hypertension or obesity, or are also impoverished. European settlers, who make up about one-quarter of the population, tend to occupy the territory’s upper wealth rungs.
Region: Fueled by the Omicron variant, the coronavirus is now reaching parts of the South Pacific that had largely avoided the pandemic. Hundreds have now been infected in Tonga — a surge most likely catalyzed by ships bringing aid after a volcanic eruption and tsunami in January — while Kiribati and the Solomon Islands have faced their own first outbreaks.
The New York Times
