COVID-19

On Saturday the government announced that churches, bars and night-clubs in the Honiara Emergency zone will stay shut, except for casinos.

This comes as Covid-19 rips through Solomon Islands, especially in the capital.

As of late last week there were more than 4,000 cases in the country and at least 50 deaths.

Mr Wale claims the exemption for the casinos is purely political to support businesses with links to the government.

He asks how casinos can be any different from churches in terms of helping spread Covid.

A 75-year-old man with pre-existing medical condition died at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva on the first of this month.

The Ministry of Health’s Permanent Secretary, Doctor James Fong said the man was not fully vaccinated as he had only received one dose of the vaccine.

The other death is that of a 64-year-old man from the Central Division with a significant pre-existing medical condition.

He was admitted to the CWM Hospital on the third of this month and passed away a day later. He had only received the first dose of the vaccine.

"Prime Minister Marape will now abort the French leg of this trip due to COVID-19 restrictions, having returned a positive test result upon arrival in Beijing last Thursday evening," the prime minister's office said in statement on its Facebook page.

The office added Marape was due to return to PNG on Sunday but would not disclose any further details about his condition.

According to a statement posted on the website of the PNG's National Control Centre for COVID-19, Marape received his booster vaccination against the coronavirus on Jan. 24th.

The Prime Minister returned a positive test result for COVID-19 upon arrival in Beijing on Thursday 3^rd January, 2022.

Nonetheless, he has hailed the visit to the People’s Republic of China, a successful one.

The Prime Minister met with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in an historic Saturday evening virtual meeting.

During this meeting the two leaders reaffirmed and announced a significant list of deliverables which included:

Asofa-Solomona was supposed to return to pre-season training in December but couldn’t because Victoria’s Covid rules ban unvaccinated professional athletes from using team facilities.

The Daniel Andrews government announced last year that all essential workers, including professional athletes, must have had two shots of a Covid-19 vaccine by November 26 in order to work in Victoria.

Asofa-Solomona, 25, was vocal on social media in his stance against mandating the vaccine but his standoff with his club has come to an end.

Manning said crowd numbers and social distancing will be an ongoing issue that will continue to be managed as the nation moves towards the upcoming National General Elections.

“Organisers of the event were aware of limitations on the number of people attending an event, and as such this was to be a low-key visit," Controller Manning said.

Manning said he was informed that the Provincial Administrator as the appointed delegate in the province, had carried out public awareness on the COVID-19 restrictions.

The baby was admitted at the CWM Hospital in Suva and her medical records reflected that she had a congenital medical condition that contributed to the severity of her illness and death on Monday.

All eight deceased were from the Central Division.

809 people have died due to COVID-19 in Fiji so far.

The Ministry of Health also recorded 95 new cases of which 83 are from n Tuesday and 12 new cases in the last 24 hours ending at 8 am yesterday.

This was according to the Pacific Business Monitor 2021 Report, released by the Pacific Trade Invest (PTI) Network today.

The report indicates that the severity of negative impacts on Pacific businesses, business revenue, and business leaders’ community wellbeing, all decreased over the year by 10 percent, 15 percent and 16 percent respectively.

“My concern is kids going back to school and in overcrowded schools, schools are expected to see an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases. This is due to Omicron,” said Dr Daoni.

He said Omicron has shown to infect young people and children more than the other variants.

“Schools must prepare and put in place measures to cover for teachers in the event that a lot of teachers get infected and miss schools.

“At the same time, schools must work closely with parents to ensure that the spread among kids or children is minimized.

Several NRL clubs have lost chunks of their squad throughout pre-season due to positive cases.

Two-thirds of the Warriors’ squad tested positive, 16 Broncos players were forced into isolation all around the same time and the Titans set a competition record with 22 positive cases after the Christmas break.

The Roosters had just 11 players available on their first day of training for 2022, while Bulldogs postponed a training session to wait out the isolation of a number of players.