{"id":476502,"date":"2022-01-19T21:47:43","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T21:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?p=69006"},"modified":"2022-01-19T21:47:43","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T21:47:43","slug":"solomon-islands-imposes-60-hour-honiara-lockdown-over-covid-outbreak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/01\/19\/solomon-islands-imposes-60-hour-honiara-lockdown-over-covid-outbreak\/","title":{"rendered":"Solomon Islands imposes 60 hour Honiara lockdown over covid outbreak"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Robert Iroga in Honiara<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Solomon islands government endorsed a 60 hour lockdown in the capital Honiara last night after an urgent special national address by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare confirming covid-19 community transmission.<\/p>\n<p>Honiara Emergency Zone will be in lockdown from 6pm last evening to 6am, Saturday, 22 January 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The lockdown comes with restriction of movements of people as ordered by the Prime Minister under Emergency Powers (COVID-19) (Honiara Emergency Zone) (Restriction of Movement of Persons) Order 2022.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.solomonstarnews.com\/lockdown-looming-for-honiara\/\"><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> Lockdown looming for Honiara<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.solomonstarnews.com\/suidani-govt-fails-the-country-by-not-protecting-borders\/\">SI government has failed the country by failing to protect borders, says Suidani<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The order reads: \u201cA person must not enter or leave the emergency zone on and from 6.00 pm on Wednesday 19 January 2022 until 6.00 am on Saturday 22 January 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The order also spelt out that a person must be at his or her residence during the lockdown period.<\/p>\n<p>And it further stated that a person must not be away from his or her residence during the lockdown period.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Essential workers exempt<\/strong><br \/>\nThose who are exempt to travel during the lockdown are essential services workers who are covered under the Essential Services Act (Cap. 12).<\/p>\n<p>The lockdown in the Honiara Emergency Zone is important for the Ministry of Health and Medical Services to continue to carry out contact tracing of people who travelled on <em>MV Awka<\/em> from Ontong Java on January 10 after a passenger on that trip was tested positive for covid-19.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Sogavare said: \u201cThe full extent of the covid-19 infection in Honiara is yet to be established, since this diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Given that the positive case lives in a household with other people, and some other passengers that travelled on the vessel have been reported to be unwell, I am sad to inform you that we already have community transmission of covid-19 in Honiara.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Members of the public are requested to practise basic health activities such as washing hands for 20 seconds or use hand sanitizers, keep social distancing of at least 2 meters apart from another person, always wear face masks and avoid congregating together.<\/p>\n<p>Other measures that have been put in place include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Temporary suspension of all domestic flights to provinces until further notice;<\/li>\n<li>Suspension of all incoming passenger service from international flights &#8212; humanitarian cargo flights to continue; and<\/li>\n<li>Suspension of all incoming passenger services from international flights until further notice.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Humanitarian cargo services will continue. Other cargo services will be considered on a case-by-case basis.<\/p>\n<p>Overseas cargo vessels, fuel and gas tankers will continue to operate as Solomon Islands depend on these vessels for its survival.<\/p>\n<p>They do not pose high covid-19 risks so they will continue to operate during the lockdown period if necessary.<\/p>\n<p>The Honiara Emergency Zone boundary is from Alligator Creek in the East to Poha in the west end of Honiara.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Earlier warning<br \/>\n<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/international\/pacific-news\/459764\/solomons-pm-confirms-more-covid-19-cases\">RNZ Pacific reports<\/a> that Prime Minister Sogavare had earlier warned the country could expect a rapid spread of covid-19 and deaths.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article__body\">\n<p>This came after 10 people had illegally entered Solomon Islands at Pelau in Ontong Java &#8211; six of them were confirmed positive with covid-19.<\/p>\n<p>One of those infected is a doctor and Sogavare said he was greatly saddened by this distressing news.<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \">\n<figure style=\"width: 720px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/assets\/news_crops\/111013\/eight_col_Sogavare_smoulder.jpg?1602556409\" alt=\"Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare.\" width=\"720\" height=\"450\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare &#8230; saddened by &#8220;distressing news&#8221;. Image: RNZ Pacific\/SI govt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>A foreign national on a flight from Brisbane has also tested positive.<\/p>\n<p>It took the Solomons tally of positive cases to 32.<\/p>\n<p>Sogavare spoke on Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corporation (SIBC), saying the number of positive cases was expected to grow rapidly in the coming weeks, and loss of life was expected.<\/p>\n<p>The SIBC reports the prime minister saying the government had sent 31 personnel, including five additional police, to Pelau to bring the outbreak under control.<\/p>\n<p><em>Republished with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2022\/01\/20\/solomon-islands-imposes-60-hour-honiara-lockdown-over-covid-outbreak\/\">Asia Pacific Report<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Robert Iroga in Honiara The Solomon islands government endorsed a 60 hour lockdown in the capital Honiara last night after an urgent special national address by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare confirming covid-19 community transmission. Honiara Emergency Zone will be in lockdown from 6pm last evening to 6am, Saturday, 22 January 2022. The lockdown comes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3321,19235,338,35498,304,28194,5,365,387,41021,309,12,403,13,14,1573,1716,887],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476502"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":478246,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476502\/revisions\/478246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}