Coronavirus

Solomons Business Magazine reports after two years of keeping the virus from entering the community, Sogavare pronounced in his much awaited special address after 10am today that the virus has finally entered the community.

Yesterday Sogavare announced that there was a community transmission in Pelau in Malaita Outer Island after a PNG medical illegally crossed the border from Mortlock Island to attend a wedding on “our side of border.”

Six people in the remote atoll of Malaita Outer Island were tested positive for the virus according to the report by SBM.

A total of 203 people are in intensive care units (ICU) around the state, up from 191 the previous day.

It is the first time more than 200 people with Covid have been admitted to intensive care in NSW.

Meanwhile, the number of people in hospital with the virus rose to 2776 in the 24 hours to 8pm yesterday.

There were 17 deaths and 29,504 new infections in the reporting period.

The new positive cases comprised 11,858 rapid antigent tests and 17,646 PCR tests.

The Auckland MIQ worker returned a positive test result as part of routine testing.

The Ministry of Health has now confirmed that the worker has caught the Omicron variant.

More than 50 close contacts have so far been identified.

All of the case's seven household contacts identified have already been contacted, isolated and tested, and returned a negative result.

The case and one household contact are now isolating in a MIQ facility. The remaining household contacts are isolating at locations in Auckland and Taupō.

Health staff who test positive for Covid-19 are being isolated which the government says has contributed to depleted staff numbers in the front-line.

Fiji's Health Minister Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete said with the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, containing any transmission is priority.

"What we've done is to make sure, we've used the available young doctors at CWM. They have been mobilized to support them in the health centres. So now they have a full cohort back on the ground," he said.

Photo file  Caption:  CWM Hospital in Suva Fiji  

179 travellers arrived on the January 6 Hawaiian Airlines flight.

Health officials suspect that some of the travellers may have contracted the omicron variant.

Deputy Director of Health Vesi Fautanu said all were removed from the quarantine sites and taken to the alternate care facility in Tafuna., where they are to be quarantined for an extra 14 days.

He said all are fully vaccinated and are doing well.

Dr Hans Kluge said a "west-to-east tidal wave" of Omicron was sweeping across the region, on top of the surge of the Delta variant already present.

The projection was based on the seven million new cases reported across Europe in the first week of 2022.

The number of infections has more than doubled in a two-week period.

"Today the Omicron variant represents a new west-to-east tidal wave, sweeping across the region on top of the Delta surge that all countries were managing until late 2021," Dr Kluge told a news conference.

A woman, only identified as Ms Wang, posted on Chinese social media platform WeChat last week that she had got locked down with her date after visiting his house for a meal.

In the post, she said that she had recently returned to the city of Zhengzhou from Guangzhou ahead of the Lunar New Year.

"I'm getting quite old, so my parents arranged more than 10 blind dates for me," she said in this post. She wrote that her fifth date had said "he was good at cooking, and invited me to his house so he could cook a meal".

The Ministry of Health confirmed that 368 cases of the total were recorded on Sunday and 93 in the

24 hours ending at 8 am on Monday.

MOH is still yet to release their latest update from yesterday.

Fiji has also recorded five deaths from Covid-19 in its latest update.

The first Covid-19 death is of a 63-year-old female from Tavua, who died on the 6th of this month.

She had significant pre-existing medical conditions and was fully vaccinated.

The second is of a 75-year-old unvaccinated man from Nausori.

They say 11 positive results were returned over the past three days, with the analysis showing that omicron has had local transmission.

Some of the cases now concern people who have had no contact with travellers who imported the virus.

Fearing a further spike in the pandemic, anybody who recently attended any gatherings outside their families is encouraged to have a test.

New Caledonia had a sharp surge of the delta variant in September, which killed more than 280 people.

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.