COVID-19 cases

At the stroke of midnight, police vehicles joined the ends of queues at each border checkpoint to mark the midnight closure. Travellers were told earlier on Friday they would need to be in line before 11:59pm in order to make it home.

"At midnight, regardless of how long the queue is, we'll have a police car go to the end of that queue," Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent said earlier.

"If you are there by midnight, regardless of whether you're actually processed, you're included as arriving prior to midnight."

Acting Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan told Victorians the state would close its border to all of NSW from 2 January because of an increase in case numbers in NSW, where 10 new cases were confirmed on Thursday.

"Obviously this is going to cause some disruption for Victorians who may be holidaying, we do apologise for this disruption, however as I said, these difficult decisions are about protecting our community," she said.

"It is a decision based on the public health advice.

Two of the cases are people who arrived from New Delhi on the 21st of December, and the other is someone who arrived from England on the same day.

The health ministry said they are all at a special quarantine facility at Lautoka Hospital.

Fiji has had 49 cases of the coronavirus since March, most of them in quarantine.

It's 255 days since the last case was detected in the community.

They are the last of 274 passengers who were quarantined for 21 days following both positive and negative test results for the men, a 23 year old sailor and 73 year old.

The Director General of Health, Leausa Dr Take Naseri, has reassured the public the virus is no longer active in either of the men.

Leausa confirmed Samoa remains free of community transmission.

Meanwhile, the last repatriation flight of the year arrived on Tuesday with around 60 Samoan citizens from Fiji who are mainly scholarship students and members of the clergy who had been studying there.

The ministry said the crew member had been retested and returned another positive result, so was now a confirmed case, but all of the tests for the person's 11 contacts had returned negative.

The person had seven close contacts and six casual contacts, the ministry said.

It said only 10 people were recorded as having signed in at Animates Manukau between 1.22pm and 2.11pm when the person had been there, after the ministry sent a push notification to them.

The Health Ministry said the trio arrived on a repatriation flight from Auckland on 19 November.

The ministry's Sunil Chandra said two of them were Fiji citizens returning from Mali while the third was a foreign national .

Chandra said the pair had started their journey from Mali while the third patient had transited through New Zealand from Germany.

He said the man worked in Fiji and was returning to the country with his family.

"The first two cases are Fijian citizens, both in their 40s, and worked at a mining company in Mali.

WHO spokeswoman Dr Margaret Harris said France, Spain, the UK, the Netherlands and Russia accounted for the majority of cases which increased by a third.

"The concern... is that intensive care units in hospitals are now beginning to fill with very ill people," she warned.

Russia reported a daily record of 320 deaths, pushing the tally to 26,589.

There has been a sharp increase in Italy too, with 221 fatalities announced in the past 24 hours. The total number of fatalities in Austria went above 1,000 on Tuesday.

To date, Papua New Guinea has 588 total confirmed COVID-19 cases. The National Capital District (NCD) has the highest number of cases with 342, followed by Western Province with 203. There are 14 provinces in the country that have reported cases.

“I remind all the provinces to continue and sustain your preparedness efforts. Use this opportunity to build your capacity and do not wait until a case is reported, ” Manning said. 

The boat is the suspected source of an infection in a New Zealand port worker.

Queensland Health Minister Steven Miles said all 19 crew aboard the Sofrana Surville have now been tested.

The ship was ordered to anchor off the coast of Mooloolaba instead of docking in Brisbane as planned.

The engineer's strain of Covid-19 had never before been detected in New Zealand, and has not been seen in Australia.

Christelle Lehartel said the Diademe High School will close after classes today and remain shut until the All Saints holidays.

External students who are boarding will be allowed to stay.

38 students, who have Covid-19 symptoms, are awaiting tests.

As of yesterday there were more than 1300 active Covid-19 cases in French Polynesia, with more than 200 new infections being recorded every day.