Everyone is talking about social distancing to help combat the spread of coronavirus, but what does keeping your distancing actually look like for the Pacific Island countries and the communities? What does it look like for individual Pacific Islanders?

While the rest of the world is coming to terms with the new reality of how to respond to the outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) or have an optimal plan in place for when the virus arrives in their country, the Islands in the South Pacific find themselves cut off and isolated.

Many businesses and schools are closed to stop the spread of the virus in the Pacific region. To add to stopping the virus, most of the common communal venues like the churches, in the communities and villages, families, and friends are discouraged to gather together in large numbers. Public health officials are urging everyone to practice social distancing and practice proper hygiene protocols of washing hands, sneezing into the elbow, stay home if you are sick, do not hug and do not shake hands.

In the Pacific region, social distancing is a hard concept to grasp, in fact, it’s seen as foriegn concept. The idea that families, friends and communities cannot socially share a time together does not fit within the social fabric and the norms of the way of life in the Pacific. Social distancing will take time for people to adapt to considering it is not a norm in the Pacific Island culture to distance themselves from each other. The culture in the Pacific a culture that embraces gathering of families, people and social practices.