27 December 2021
Solomon Islands is suspected of having lost its COVID-19 status after two returning passengers tested positive for COVID-19.
The two tested positive during routine tests at one of the managed isolation centers in Honiara.
Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare announced the two positive cases in a special nation wide address this afternoon.
He says one of the patient is a 10 year old boy who returned from a repatriation flight from Fiji and not vaccinated because of his age. The rest of his family tested negative.
The other is a person who returned from Dubai and was fully vaccinated.
Prime Minister Sogavare says that based on early assessments it is likely that the infection from the passenger who arrived from Fiji may be Delta while the one who returned from Dubai may be the Omicron.
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Early studies seem to indicate that the Omicron appears better able to evade immunity. Studies also suggest COVID-19 vaccines will continue to dramatically limit severe disease and death, but may not be as good at preventing symptomatic disease caused by Omicron, compared to other strains.
Mr Sogavare said samples will be sent to Australia to confirm the type of variant as the country's lab cannot do genome sequencing.
Solomon Islands now have two active cases of COVID-19.
Copyright @ 2021, Solomon Times Online.
Meanwhile China reported its highest daily rise in local Covid-19 cases in 21 months as infections more than doubled in the northwestern city of Xian, China's latest pandemic hot spot.
The city of 13 million, which entered its fourth day of lockdown, detected 155 domestically transmitted cases with confirmed symptoms for Saturday, up from 75 a day earlier, official data showed on Sunday.
That drove the national daily count to 158, the highest since China managed to contain a nationwide outbreak in early 2020.
Xian, with 485 local symptomatic cases reported for the 9-25 December period, has imposed heavy-handed measures to rein in the outbreak, in line with Beijing's policy that any flare-up should be contained as soon as possible.
The city managed to quickly detect those cases through three rounds of mass testing, He Wenquan, a Xian official, told a press conference on Sunday, adding that high case numbers could persist into the next couple of days.
"In order to quickly screen out the infected groups of people, after an analysis by experts, we will step up control measures in key areas, especially places with greater risk level," said He.
The local government also announced that it would launch a city-wide disinfection campaign from 6pm local time, urging residents to shut the windows and bring clothes or other items inside from their balconies.
Residents may not leave town without approval from employers or local authorities and multiple rounds of mass testing were conducted to identify cases.
The city has announced no infections caused by the Omicron variant, although Chinese authorities have reported a handful of Omicron infections among international travellers and in southern China.
Including imported cases, mainland China confirmed 206 new cases on 25 December up from 140 a day earlier.
No new deaths were reported, leaving the cumulative death toll at 4636. Mainland China had 101,077 confirmed cases as of December 25.
Copyright @ 2021, Radio New Zealand.
In the United States US airlines called off hundreds of flights for a third day in a row on Sunday as surging Covid-19 infections due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant grounded crews and forced tens of thousands of Christmas weekend travellers to change their plans.
Commercial airlines cancelled 656 flights within, into or out of the United States on Sunday, slightly down from nearly 1000 from Christmas Day and nearly 700 on Christmas Eve, according to a tally on flight-tracking website FlightAware.com.
Further cancellations were likely, and more than 920 flights were delayed.
The Christmas holidays are typically a peak time for air travel, but the rapid spread of the Omicron variant has led to a sharp increase in Covid-19 infections, forcing airlines to cancel flights with pilots and crew needing to be quarantined.
Delta Air Lines Inc expected more than 300 of its flights to be cancelled on Sunday.
"Winter weather in portions of the US and the Omicron variant continued to impact Delta's holiday weekend flight schedule," a Delta spokesperson said in an emailed statement, adding that the company was working to "reroute and substitute aircraft and crews to get customers where they need to be as quickly and safely as possible".
When that was not possible, it was coordinating with impacted customers on the next available flight, the spokesperson said.
Globally, Flight Aware data showed that nearly 2150 flights were called off on Sunday and another 5798 were delayed, as of 9.40am EST (1440 GMT).
Omicron was first detected in November and now accounts for nearly three-quarters of US cases and as many as 90 percent in some areas, such as the Eastern Seaboard. The average number of new US Coronavirus cases has risen 45 percent to 179,000 per day over the past week, according to a Reuters tally.
While recent research suggests Omicron produces milder illness and a lower rate of hospitalisations than previous variants of Covid-19, health officials have maintained a cautious note about the outlook.
- Reuters
Copyright @ 2021, Radio New Zealand.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
