Coronavirus

 The city reported another 31 cases on Wednesday, bringing the total to 137 in the past week.

Before the recent spike, the Chinese capital had gone 57 days without a locally-transmitted case.

The outbreak is believed to have started in the massive Xinfandi food market that supplies 80% of the city's meat and vegetables.

At least 27 neighbourhoods have been classed as medium risk and one neighbourhood, near the market, is high risk.

People in medium or high-risk areas cannot leave the city. People in low-risk areas can leave, but need to test negative first.

The 47-year-old was criticised for his cost-cutting measures, including asking 80% of staff to take a pay cut.

He was appointed in October 2018 following James Sutherland's 17-year tenure.

Englishman Nick Hockley, the chief executive of the T20 World Cup, has replaced Roberts on an interim basis.

Cricket Australia said a wider "operational reset" at the governing body will be announced this week.

The United States still had the highest number of infections, about 2 million or 25 percent of all reported cases. However, the outbreak is growing fastest in Latin America, which now accounts for 21 percent of all cases, according to a Reuters tally.

Brazil's Covid-19 cases and deaths had surged to make it second hot spot in the world.

The first case was reported in China in early January and it took until early May to reach 4 million cases. It has taken just five weeks to double to 8 million cases, according to a Reuters tally.

The United Nations wants to know what the social and economic effect of Covid restrictions have been.

It's looking at economic and food security, employment, debt and standards of living.

Results will help the Samoa Government and aid donors better understand how Samoans are coping with the pandemic.

The UN said the survey was anonymous and no personal information would be made public.

Meanwhile, Samoans returning on repatriation flights may soon be able to spend two weeks in quarantine at home.

Cook Islands Prime Minister Henry Puna told Newshub earlier this month that without any cases of the disease, the Cook Islands poses no threat to New Zealand - and vice versa. Samoa, Kiribati, Nauru, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Vanuatu and Tuvalu also haven't reported any cases.

New Zealand's last confirmed case was more than three weeks ago, and it's been four weeks since the last patient known to be infected via community transmission left self-isolation.

The bot called Ᾱmio was created by three New Zealand doctors, Sanjeev Krishna, Canaan Aumua and Cole Rudolph, and is currently in English and Mandarin.

Dr Aumua said the Samoan, Tongan and Fijian languages would be the first set of Pacific languages the team would explore for Ᾱmio.

"There's also been some questions around the Cook Islands and Cook Island Māori because of how it would be an easy and nice transition between the two languages.

The child of one of the Bulldogs players attends a school in the Sutherland Shire where a staff member has tested positive for Covid-19.

The primary school has closed until 25 June and students have been told to self-isolate.

The Bulldogs and Roosters game will now be played on Monday night at Bankwest Stadium due to the potential biosecurity problem.

Sunday's later game between St George Illawarra and Cronulla at Campbelltown Stadium has been brought forward to the earlier timeslot.

“Everybody knew somebody who had been impacted. But even more than that it was their country this was happening to, their people,” says Ellie van Baaren of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. “It’s such a small country it affected everybody.”

The outbreak infected more than 5,700 people and killed 83, most of them children under five.

The health ministry said 3,574 new Covid-19 infections were recorded on Wednesday - the third consecutive day the figure has exceeded 3,000.

Another 59 people with the disease died, raising the toll to 8,071.

The president has said restrictions may be re-imposed if people do not follow social distancing and hygiene rules.

Before Wednesday's new infections were reported, bringing the overall total to 164,270, the previous high was 3,186 on 30 March. The number of cases then declined steadily until 2 May, when 802 were recorded.

The Samoa Observer newspaper reported at least nine people had been allowed to quarantine at home.

One such person is historian Meleisea Malama Meleisea, who posted on Facebook that he was at home but had been visited by Police and Ministry of Health personnel. He said there were two security guards on duty around the clock, something he thought was "quite unnecessary".

Authorities said those who were allowed home had made their requests weeks ago and stringent isolation conditions had been placed on them.

They did not confirm how many were quarantining at home.