COVID-19

Director of the Department of Public Health and Media Focal Person for COVID-19, Dr Len Tarivonda, said the fine issued under relevant laws relating to the current State of Emergency, is a warning to other foreign vessels and everyone else to respect COVID-19 measures in place.

However, there is no requirement to continue the quarantine of the vessel or Malekula Island.

This is the recommendation that the Investigation Team has submitted to the National Disaster Management Office after completing investigation into reported breaches of COVID-19 social restrictions.

Mayor Eric Garcetti made the announcement just hours after Los Angeles County reported its largest daily increase in new Covid-19 cases.

Until now, only essential workers and those displaying symptoms could receive tests due to a scarcity of kits.

It comes as California is expected to close all beaches across the state.

Los Angeles County currently accounts for almost half of California's confirmed coronavirus cases. The state has so far reported over 48,000 cases and more than 1,900 deaths.

Suva-based WHO representative Angela Merianos said Pacific nations were among the first group of countries receiving specially developed cartridges from US manufacturer Cepheid, for local testing of Covid-19.

South Pacific nations using New Zealand or Australia to run their testing should be getting cartridges. Some, like Tokelau where there was no testing facility, would also receive the GeneXpert system.

While the $7.4m loss represents a 37 per cent improvement on budget, NZR financial officer Nicki Nicol warned of the significant impacts Covid-19 will bring.

“At New Zealand Rugby we are forecasting up to a 70 per cent decline in revenue and we’ve had to quickly adjust our cost base accordingly,” Nicol said at Thursday’s annual general meeting.

“We know this has had an impact across all areas of our game; our players, teams, competitions, programmes and partnerships with provincial unions, Super clubs and others across the industry.

Zahara de los Atunes, near Cadiz, used tractors to spray more than 2km (1.2 miles) of beach with a bleach solution a day before Spain allowed children out of lockdown for the first time.

Environmentalists say the move caused "brutal damage" to the local ecosystem.

Spain has been badly affected by the coronavirus, with 23,800 deaths.

It recently announced a four-phase plan to lift its stringent lockdown measures and return to a "new normality" by the end of June.

The music-streaming platform says it gained six million subscribers in the first quarter of 2020.

It said the figures fell into the higher end of what had been predicted before the coronavirus outbreak.

But analysts have warned Spotify's quarterly results may not be as positive as the company suggests.

Spotify said a double-digit rise in quarterly revenue had helped offset a decline in ad sales, which contributed less than 10% of its overall revenue.

The WHO's Angela Merianos said new initiatives like the Pacific Islands Forum's fast-track humanitarian pathway are helping these efforts.

Dr Merianos leads a new space for more than 20 agencies joining forces against Covid-19 in the Pacific.

She said the team are well aware of the impact of restrictions on tourism-dependent economies.

"I think we really have to again work collectively watch this space, make sure that we're balancing the interest of public health and human safety."

The lockdown imposed on Sunday was lifted yesterday (Wednesday, 29 April).

NDMO Director Abraham Nasak said the Ministry of Health carried out an epidemiology investigation and the findings concluded that there is no COVID-19 infection on the ship and therefore there the risk of importing the virus is minimal.

The cargo ship Amazin from the Philippines has been cleared to continue its voyage to the next port of destination.

The results are compiled in a joint survey on the impact of the novel coronavirus that was conducted by the Vanuatu Tourism Office and Ministry of Tourism.

Vanuatu’s Tourism office said these businesses also reported that marketing, product development and financial management were the three main areas where they needed assistance with because of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Malekula has been on lockdown since Sunday after the ship was found to have gone there to collect copra and had interacted with the community.

Authorities ordered the Filipino vessel to Port Vila where it was found to be coronavirus-free.

Under current Covid-19 measures, ships were allowed to come to Vanuatu, but human interaction was prohibited between crew members and locals.

The Director of Public Health, Len Tarivonda, said although the ship had been cleared, a Malekula man who boarded the boat had other issues to deal with.