COVID-19 case

The Victorian Department of Health tweeted on Tuesday evening that one of the nine positive cases attended the match and was seated in the Great Southern Stand of the ground.

The match was attended by just 23,415 AFL fans despite the AFL allowing the MCG to be up to 85 percent full of its maximum capacity of 100,024 fans.

The news came after restrictions were tightened across Greater Melbourne on Tuesday as authorities scrambled to find the missing link in a fresh outbreak, prompting New Zealand to pause a travel bubble with the state of Victoria.

Last night the Permanent Secretary for Health, Dr James Fong announced that a woman from Makoi, outside Suva presented herself at a health centre yesterday with COVID symptoms.

“We’ll be treating this as another case of community transmission until proven otherwise. The contact tracing, testing and isolation protocols are currently activated and the centre is closed for now. Due to the steadily rising number of cases across Viti Levu, the borders of all six containment areas Lautoka, Nadi, Rakiraki, Lami, Suva and Nausori are being maintained.”

As the government works to roll out newly received AstraZeneca vaccines, it has issued renewed calls for the public to remain at home.

Health Permanent Secretary Dr James Fong said continued increases in cases which can't be tracked means containment zones will remain.

"The confirmation of cases of unknown origin, in particular, indicates the virus could still be present in all six areas, so the borders must be enforced, as must the other restrictions we have in place," Dr Fong said.

"When the data tells us to proceed in a different direction -- we'll tell you."

The case is a woman from Wainitarawau Settlement in Cunningham, in outer northern Suva.

She had attended a funeral in Lautoka last week along with a mother and her daughter who became Fiji's first Covid-19 community cases in more than a year, and over five hundred other people.

The Permanent Secretary of Health, Dr James Fong, said the woman's family members had been taken to the Navua hospital isolation unit. The Fiji Times quotes him saying the family members have so far tested negative.

The 53-year old woman is a first-generation contact identified through contact tracing related to the border quarantine case announced yesterday.

The woman lives in Nadi, with a travel history in Nadi and Lautoka.

All members of her household have already been entered into quarantine.

The Ministry of Health is awaiting the results of their Covid-19 tests.

To aid rapid contact tracing and reduce the likelihood of further transmission, the Government announced a lockdown of the Greater Nadi and Lautoka Area, starting from 4am this morning.

The positive case is a recently deceased Filipino fisherman whose dead body washed up on a beach near the capital Port Vila a week ago, before it was taken to the local mortuary.

RNZ Pacific reprots following the discovery of the body last week, a UK-flagged tanker was detained by Vanuatu authorities amid investigations over the death.

Vanuatu's Prime Minister Bob Loughman announced the confirmation of the positive case by health authorities at Port Vila Central Hospital.

The case was confirmed just as Fiji was preparing to commemorate one year since the last case of Covid-19 outside of a border quarantine facility.

Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said yesterday they became aware of a new border quarantine case that could pose a risk of transmission beyond the border which requires immediate steps, from all of us, to mitigate.

Thursday's play at the six warm-up events at Melbourne Park has been cancelled as a result.

But Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said: "At this stage there is no impact on the tournament proper."

Players will be free to return to competition after a negative test.

"We will work with everyone involved to facilitate testing as quickly as possible," said Australian Open organisers.

The Grand Slam tournament, which was pushed back by three weeks to enable players to quarantine, starts on Monday.

In a statement, the government confirmed the student was repatriated from the Philippines in September last year, tested positive for Covid-19 in quarantine, before recovering and being released in November after five consecutive negative test results.

The Solomon Star newspaper reported the student spent the Christmas-New Year period in his home village in Malaita Province before falling sick and testing positive for Covid-19 at the Kilufi Provincial Hospital this week.

According to a statement, lab evaluations of samples in Vanuatu and Australia to date indicate a very low level of virus meaning that it is unlikely the case would have been able to transmit the disease.

A 23-year-old man repatriated from the US is Vanuatu’s first confirmed Covid-19 case.

The case identified during routine day 5 testing with a re-testing to confirm.

The man remains in isolation at Vila Central Hospital.

A total of 2290 passengers have arrived in Vanuatu since repatriation flights began on 1 August.