Community transmission

Community transmission was first announced in November last year.

RNZ Pacific reports there was a peak in December with the number of positive cases reaching 390 out of a population of about 1400.

Since then, January saw 210 positive cases, which gradually decreased as people recovered and very few new cases were detected or reported to the Health Department.

Minister for Health Sauni Tongatule said he was very pleased that there are now no active cases.

Because of Omicron the Polyfest will be a shadow of its former self. The number of groups has dropped from around 200 pre-covid to just 68.

Sonny Haiosi has been attending for 18 years, watching his four daughters take the stage.

"It wouldn't be the same if you go there and there is not 100-thousand people there, I know that much. When you go to polyfest and you can't move around and that's from the time when you get to the gate which is pretty much feeding into Polyfest, that is Polyfest," Sonny Haiosi said.

The change was announced as Vanuatu reported 35 new Covid-19 cases yesterday.

The initial 48-hour curfew period covering Efate and its offshore islands ends at 6pm today.

An amendment order to include 5 other provinces was signed by the Minister of Health, Bruno Leingkone yesterday and published in the Official Gazette.

The Health Emergency Order paragraph 3 “(1A) stated that, A curfew is applied in islands in the SHEFA province and in all the following provinces in Vanuatu, TAFEA province, MALAMPA province, PENAMA province, SANMA province and TORBA province,

There are a total of 58 Covid cases in the island nation and 10 of them are in the community.

Minister of Health, Bruno Leingkon said the community cases were discovered over the weekend after the Member of Parliament for Port Vila constituency, Anthony Yauko tested positive.

Yauko and the other members of a parliamentary committee he was with are now in quarantine on Iririki Island resort along with more than 50 other close contacts.

More than 150 other people from Port Vila and surrounding villages who are not close contacts are also in quarantine at Iririki.

In a statement, the Ministry of Health said there are also 344 cases in hospital and five in ICU.

The cases in hospital are in Northland (5), North Shore (53), Middlemore (128), Auckland (100), Tauranga (11), Taranaki (1), Waikato (28), Canterbury (4) Southern (4), Hutt Valley (6)Capital and Coast (3) and Tairawhiti (1).

Solomon Business Magazine reports Health Minister Culwick Togamana announced the deaths this afternoon along with the latest figures showing 650 cases of Covid-19 as of midday Tuesday.

The two victims were a 51-year-old female and a 59-year-old male who had pre-existing conditions, including diabetes and high-blood pressure before contracting the virus.

They passed away on Monday night at the National Referral Hospital.

It takes to 81 the number of cases in the country, which until this week had had just a handful of people with the virus.

The cases are spread throughout the country with Ontong Java and parts of Guadalcanal in lockdown.

The outbreak began with the illegal entry of a vessel from Papua New Guinea to Ontong Java last week.

That vessel delivered at least 23 cases of Covid-19.

The virus has since spread to Guadalcanal, prompting a lockdown in Honiara that is due to finish tomorrow morning.

Authorities believe the man, who has not been vaccinated, has been infectious since Friday.

He had not been overseas or worked in Sydney's hotel quarantine system so authorities were keeping an open mind while working to find the source of the infection, NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said.

She said authorities hoped genome sequencing would identify the source of the infection, which could be from interstate.

Chant said the man's cycle threshold (VT) values were low, which meant he had a higher viral load and was potentially more infectious.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said six of the cases were overseas acquired and four were community transmission, two of those were linked to the 26-year-old landscaper from Stafford who tested positive to the highly infectious UK strain on Thursday night.

ABC News reports two of the cases have an unknown origin.

Greater Brisbane will now go into a three-day lockdown as of 5:00pm today and masks will be mandatory.

This includes the Ipswich, Logan, Redlands, Moreton and Brisbane council areas.