COVID-19

“The U.S. is committed to providing 1.2 billion doses of safe, effective vaccines to meet global needs. That extraordinary number of doses is protecting individuals, families, and villages here in the South Pacific and around the world,” says U.S. Ambassador to Samoa, Ambassador Tom Udall.

This latest delivery was made through the COVAX Facility. The United States is the largest donor to COVAX, having donated $4 billion to help protect the most vulnerable and at-risk populations in 92 low- and middle-income countries.

Three critical cases are in ICU at the Moto’otua Hospital.

 The total number of community cases is now recorded at 7,114. Covid-19 cases at Port of Entry (POE) total 71 including eight new positive border cases confirmed in the last 24-hours.

The ministry released the new cases in its latest report.

An official notice from local Communist Party officials in an area in the north of the city details orders to transfer residents to quarantine facilities more than 100 miles (160km) away.

The plan is to move people from their homes in Pingwang to the neighbouring province of Zhejiang, where they will stay for at least a week. Young children, the elderly and those with disabilities could be excluded, according to the notice.

In-line with the Ministry’s mandatory focus, the initiative currently prioritizes low-income families struggling to support multiple children, a person(s) with a disability, elderly or a loved one infected with Covid-19.

A total of 200 packages containing basic necessities such as; soaps, face masks, sanitizers, water bottles and basic hygiene information/brochures from the Ministry of Health, are earmarked for Upolu and Savaii i.e. 100 for Upolu, 100 for Savaii.

The unofficial number might have reached that milestone even sooner.

NSW Health yesterday recorded 15,683 new Covid cases, taking the state's tally to over 2m since the start of the pandemic.

It's an official number, but the actual number of cases is probably far higher.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said on Wednesday - shortly before he contracted the virus - that cases were estimated to be under-reported by about 50 percent owing to people not being symptomatic or not reporting mild cases.

This brings the total number of community cases to 2,722 with 1,502 active cases.

There are 17 cases currently in managed isolation at the Moto’otua National Hospital.

To date, 24,241 RATs have been administered by the Ministry of Health. The total number of Covid-19 deaths still remain at two.

According to the Ministry, the overall attack rate for Samoa is 10.7.

The areas with the highest attack rates have been identified as Faleata 4 and Vaimauga 4, reporting the highest number of cases per 1,000 population.

According to the Ministry of Health, the deceased was admitted to the hospital with severe Covid-19.

She was unvaccinated with no underlying health conditions.

There are now 2566 community cases.

The Ministry said 123 new cases were confirmed in the 24-hour period to 2pm yesterday.

There are 2496 cases in Upolu and 70 in Savaii.

The 25-29 age group has the highest number of cases at 320.

There are 149 cases in children under 4 years.

Of the total number of cases, 1,524 are active cases with 1,039 recovering from the virus.

The move comes more than two years into the pandemic, and just days after free testing ended in England.

However, the NHS cautions that many of the new symptoms "are very similar" to those for colds and flu.

The original signs of a Covid infection that were recognised in the UK were:

The change was announced this evening by Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa.

Fiame said under Alert Level 2, some amendments have been made to the State of Emergency Orders to help reduce congestion in public places, continue to drive vaccination and testing programmes and to assist in slowing down new infections.

“At the same time Level 2 provides space for Government ministries, corporations, private sector and civil society to operate businesses and deliver services required for the country.

These amendments include:

But in recent days the usually bustling financial centre has been stopped in its tracks after a spike in coronavirus cases.

With little notice, officials imposed two staggered waves of lockdowns on the city's more than 26m residents. The eastern side of Shanghai has just been through four days of tight restrictions. The western part began its four-day isolation on 1 April.

The latest round of quarantining is China's largest since the coronavirus outbreak was first identified in Wuhan at the end of 2019.