PNG shut down the domestic and international border at the end of March 2020 due to COVID-19 outbreaks around the world and the State of Emergency (SOE) is still continuing. Domestic travel has recently re-opened, and limited International flights have resumed by Air Niugini (and some chartered flights) between Brisbane and Cairns to POM.
Altogether there have been eight official COVID-19 cases in PNG since the SOE began, all cases have recovered and subsequent tests on these people have come back negative.
You can find the latest COVID-19 official update reports from the link below.
OFFICIAL COVID-19 INFO WEBSITE
Life in POM now..
At the height of the SOE, local gatherings were banned, in venues such as churches, cinemas, shopping centers and restaurants, as of today, these restrictions are slowly being lifted enabling popular venues like Paradise Cinemas to reopen as of May 04, 2020.
Restaurants are now able to serve customers for dine-in orders, a significant improvement from the initial take-out only rules!
Fortunately PNG did not experience a shortage on essential household goods such as toilet paper, and staple groceries (bread and meat) unlike many other countries.
Initially, shortages included hand sanitizer, and face masks, after a few weeks, local businesses pivoted and repurposed some of their production facilities to begin the manufacture of PPE, and smaller SME businesses have begun making reusable PNG themed face masks. Thankfully these supply shortages seem to have been largely addressed by local manufacturing of PPE.
Things are slowly returning back to normal in PNG, but many expatriates are finding that they are still unable to return to their work in POM from overseas, due to the mandatory 14 day quarantine in a designated hotel that must be prepaid (eg. Laguna Hotel K9100 for 14 days) and the requirement that official approval is given by the SOE controller for approval of Air Niugini to uplift that passenger from Australia. It will be a slow process for life to resume back to normal 100%…
Many people are understandably wary of the next phase of COVID-19 outbreaks, as this will determine whether the SOE is extended or lifted entirely…
UPDATE 02/06/2020 The State of Emergency was extended almost unanimously by Parliament for an additional 14 days. This means that there are still severe restrictions on all international flights. All 37 SOE directives were withdrawn, and a new set of 13 SOE directives were issued!
UPDATE 16/06/2020 The State of Emergency was lifted!
Many restaurants and facilities, have had no option but to shorten their trading hours to as a direct result of the significant decrease in customers. We recommend that you should try to contact them by telephone to confirm they are open.