Coronavirus

Northern Province reported 40 cases, while the National Capital District recorded one.

The latest figures now brings total COVID-19 confirmed cases to 36,326. During the period Thursday 6^th to Friday 7^th, no new deaths and Delta cases were recorded.

The NCC also released a summary of COVID-19 statistics in the 22 provinces:

Although the country's most populous state has few Covid-19 restrictions in place, businesses around NSW have been forced to close due to virus-induced staff absences.

Spending data analysed by ANZ last week indicated economic activity plummeting to levels lower than any other time during the pandemic.

"We're now facing economic situations that are worse than if we'd had an actual lockdown," said economist Jim Stanford, director of the Centre for Future Work.

1,280 new cases of Covid-19 were reported last weekend, taking the total number of active cases to 4,429.

Health Secretary James Fong also confirmed the death toll is now 709.

Dr Fong said the five victims all died at home including a 27 year-old man.

Out of the 1,280 new cases, Dr Fong said 348 of them were recorded on 6 January, 320 on 7 January and 612 new cases in the last 24 hours ending at 8am on 5 January.

Chief Executive Officer, Matt Cannon said according to its Ambulance transport data, they responded to 400 emergency incidents across the country with no COVID-19 cases.

On Thursday 30 Dec 2021 to Wednesday 5^th January St John Ambulance responded to 71 respiratory cases. About 49 respiratory cases in NCD, Central 8, Morobe 4, Chimbu 5, while East New Britain recorded 5 cases.

“There have been zero confirmed COVID-19 cases attended to by ambulance officers. However, there were 71 respiratory cases.”

The unauthorised march in Noumea was held just a day after the government imposed a limit of 30 people for any outside gathering.

Police say while the meeting was illegal, they didn't intervene because many children were in the crowd.

However, according to the public broadcaster, police used teargas after the end of the rally to disperse some demonstrators.

The march was called to oppose the health pass required to enter venues, such as restaurants and museums, and to protest against the law making vaccinations mandatory.

This has been confirmed by the MInister of Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport Faiyaz Koya.

From today, failure to wear a mask or face-covering in the required setting will result in the spot fine of $250, businesses failing to maintain records or have QR codes available for a scan can be fined up to a thousand dollars.

Koya said the business and the official responsible will also get charged.

Failure to take temperature checks will incur a $250 fine for individuals and a $1, 000 fine will be imposed on business.

The highly transmissible variant has rapidly spread around the globe and New Zealand has dodged a community outbreak so far.

But with the escalating number of overseas returnees testing positive, there are fears a new wave of the virus could be out in the community within weeks.

Epidemiologist and University of Otago professor Michael Baker called the variant a "huge threat" and said it was not a matter of if there was an outbreak, but when.

Close contacts of people with COVID-19 will be allowed out of isolation to work if their job is critical for food supply or emergency services under new rules in New South Wales and Queensland.

The two state governments announced the relaxed restrictions to ease food shortages on Sunday as federal health officials revealed isolation rules may soon change nationwide.

The latest death recorded on 5 January, now brings the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths to 591 after been stalled at 590 for a while.

Meanwhile there has been an increase in the number of new daily COVID-19 cases reported. On the 3^rd and 5^th January 2022 there was one (1) newly confirmed case respectively, whilst there were 3 new positive cases on the 4^th January.

As of January 1^st, 2022 there were only two reported cases in the last 14 days, out of the 82 diagnosed cases, with no COVID-19-related deaths reported. A similar result goes for January 2^nd for the 78 diagnosed, there were only two newly reported cases.