COVID-19

The French High Commission said the chartered Air Tahiti Nui plane carried, apart from freight, returning residents and members of mobile police squad who would be quarantined in the barracks.

Four more such flights are planned until the end of June when scheduled airline services are expected to resume.

Hundreds of residents remain stranded in France, with no additional plans to accelerate their return.

Meanwhile, the government eased restrictions on the sale of alcohol so designated wine shop and liquor outlets can open except for Sunday afternoons.

Border restrictions, closures and halting of international travel are affecting the airline.

Nauru Airlines has scheduled fortnightly passenger flights to and from Brisbane and a few freighter flights each week that bring supplies for the island.

As Minister for Nauru Airlines, President Lionel Aingimea said, “This affects our airline drastically, in a financial sense,” adding that in 2021 the airline is looking at 80 per cent cells operations which means revenue for the airline will be down by millions.

The ship, the Charo, which had been at sea for a month, had anchored in an uninhabited bay off Nuku Hiva yesterday where doctors tested all sailors.

One of the crew was flown by the French military from Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas to the main hospital in Tahiti in an operation which also involved the urgent medical aid service, SAMU, and the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in Tahiti.

A government statement said the patient, who was described as a suspected Covid-19 case, was put on reanimation and kept in isolation to protect other patients.

The head of the UN Children's Agency, UNICEF, said as the world struggles to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, a child survival crisis looms in the months ahead.

Henrietta Fore said already fragile health systems were growing weaker with lockdowns disrupting critical health services including vaccinations.

Ms Fore said with a global recession fast approaching, many children could fall below the poverty line.

Yesterday 64 samples were tested with 11 positive results returned.

The Governor's Press Secretary, Krystal Paco-San Agustin, said the public still needed to remain cautious.

"Please stay home. If you don't have to go out. Please stay home. Stop the spread and save lives," she said.

"The Joint Information Centre will have more information on these individuals, these new positive cases, when we receive the epidemiological profiles.

"Again 11 new cases brings Guam's Covid count to 165."

The country has 271,628 confirmed cases but the true number is likely to be higher because of insufficient testing.

Far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly played down the risks of Covid-19.

On Tuesday he again defended use of the unproven drug chloroquine as a remedy, despite alerts it may be unsafe.

Mr Bolsonaro's repeated defiance of public health expert advice on Covid-19 has led to the resignation of two trained doctors as health minister in the past month.

The halt in tourism caused by border closures, cuts to remittances and seasonal worker programmes and other effects of Covid-19 have been devastating for many Pacific economies.

The funding will be redirected from the existing aid programme, and the government says it will provide respite for Pacific governments.

A fifth of the money will go to Papua New Guinea, with the rest to be shared among nine other countries.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said the funding will "expand technological, distance learning, training, and long-term planning capabilities."

Guam receives nearly $US60 million (59,758,889), American Samoa over $US47 million (47,218,429) and the Northern Marianas close to $US30 million (29,787,559).

Among the Freely Associated States, Micronesia gets $US3.6 million (3,654,689), Marshall Islands nearly $US2 million (1,964,396) and Palau $US760,000 (762,497).

"I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better," he said at the White House.

The US has 1.5 million coronavirus cases and nearly 92,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In second place is Russia, with nearly 300,000 confirmed cases.

What did Trump say?

On Monday, Mr Trump was hosting his first cabinet meeting since the US outbreak began.

Last night in Jayapura, the Papua Province Covid-19 Task Force spokesman Silwanus Sumule announced a sharp increase of 74 cases in a day.

The total now stands at 436. Of that number 323 people are recieving medical treatment.

The death toll remains at 7.

Reflecting the breakdown of overall cases to date, most of the new cases are in Jayapura City and in other regencies close to the border with Papua New Guinea, as well as in Mimika regency, arround the Freeport gold mine, the single biggest cluster so far.