Coronavirus

Officers say they caught a businessman unloading the masks from a lorry into a house in St Denis, north of Paris.

Last month, France requisitioned all stocks and production of face masks to equip health workers.

Meanwhile in China, the authorities have confiscated 89m poor quality face masks. The country has faced criticism over poor quality exports.

Officials had inspected nearly 16 million businesses and had also seized large quantities of ineffective disinfectant, government official Gan Lin said.

Ministry of Health guidelines restrict testing to those with at least one symptom of infection, or where there has been a cluster, or an outbreak in a vulnerable facility. Officials have maintained there is no need to expand the testing definition.

But at a community testing centre in Otara, managed by South Seas Healthcare, anyone living in a crowded home or with a pre-existing health condition can be tested, according to South Seas GP Andrew Chan Mow.

The family of Alba Maruri were informed of her death last month and later sent what they were told were her ashes.

But Ms Maruri awoke from a three-week coma in hospital on Thursday and asked doctors to call her sister.

Her family were overjoyed at the news - but are unclear whose ashes they have in their home.

The hospital has apologised for the mix-up. Ms Maruri lives in the city of Guayaquil, the epicentre of Ecuador's Covid-19 outbreak.

Ecuador has been badly affected by the pandemic, with more than 22,000 cases and nearly 600 reported deaths.

A Joint Ministerial Statement by Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, The Republic of the Union of Myanmar, The Republic of Nauru, New Zealand, Singapore and Uruguay represents a collective response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, with a commitment to maintaining open and connected supply chains, as well as to collaborating to identify and address trade disruptions with ramifications on the flow of necessities.

The cats, from separate areas of New York state, had mild respiratory illness and are expected to make a full recovery. It is believed that they contracted the virus from people in their households or neighbourhoods, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

"Animals, pets, can get infected. There's no evidence that the virus is transmitted from the pet to a human," Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at the daily coronavirus briefing.

The WHO's Western Pacific division held a media briefing this week to discuss the coronavirus.

Asked when regional countries might lift some restrictions imposed under their states of emergency, the WHO Regional Director Takeshi Kasai urged caution.

"When we consider lifting, we need a careful analysis of the situation And we should not lift everything all at once."

Dr Kasai said this applied to all countries, including those in the Pacific islands who had no reported cases of Covid-19.

In an interview with the Government Information Office, President Aingimea said as such this action is to ensure the community is protected from any possible spread of infection.

An incident over the weekend where a group of friends visited a friend in quarantine were considered to be in close proximity of the resident have since been contained until further tests are done.

The Pacific has a high dependency on food imports; for example, Fiji imports 85 per cent of its rice from Vietnam and Thailand.

Pacific Beat understands that the Australian government is currently reviewing each Pacific nation's food security risk, with some concern that while borders may be left open for cargo, not all ships may continue to operate.

The director of the SPC's fisheries division, Neville Smith, said they were working to minimise the impact on the tuna fishery, the coastal fishery and on aquaculture.

Mr Smith said exports from fisheries and Pacific food security were now more important than ever.

He said fisheries observers not being able to travel, along with port closures, were a threat to the finances of the hugely important tuna fishery.

In a media briefing with the Government Information Office (GIO) Monday, President Lionel Aingimea advised that Nauru remains coronavirus-free.

Those currently held in quarantine at the Budapest hotel have another week to go of their 14 days, while those that have just arrived at the Menen Hotel on Friday 17 April, begin their 14 days quarantine.