Premier mandates Samoan lockdown

15 Australians test positive for covid

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The prime minister of Samoa has placed the small Pacific nation into a 48-hour lockdown after 15 passengers on a flight from Australia tested positive for covid-19.

The infected passengers were among 73 who arrived from Brisbane on Wednesday.

Also Saturday, the first commercial airline flights in one month took off Saturday from Xi’an in western China as the government eased travel curbs imposed after a coronavirus outbreak ahead of next month’s Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Seven planes took off, according to the website of Xi’an Xianyang International Airport. It said four were due to arrive today.

Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa said Saturday that the government may cancel further flights from Australia. A scheduled flight from New Zealand on Saturday has already been postponed, according to Radio New Zealand.

All the passengers were reportedly fully vaccinated and had tested negative for covid-19 before departure.

The governor of neighboring American Samoa, Lemanu Palepoi Sialega “Peleti” Mauga, issued a statement offering words of solidarity to Samoa and support for its prime minister. He also announced the cancellation of flights between the territory and Samoa for one week.

Samoa, population 200,000, has reported 18 active cases.

American Samoa also has 18 cases, all of them travelers from Hawaii on Hawaiian Airlines flights from Honolulu. The latest group of seven who tested positive arrived Jan 6.

There is no lockdown in American Samoa and flights between Honolulu and Pago Pago continue on limited basis.

In China, access to Xi’an, a city of 13 million people about 600 miles southwest of Beijing, was suspended Dec. 22 after a coronavirus outbreak attributed to the delta variant.

The ruling Communist Party has stepped up enforcement of its “zero tolerance” strategy that aims to keep the virus out of China by finding and isolating every infected person. It suspended access to Xi’an and other cities after outbreaks were found.

Nationwide, China reported 63 new confirmed infections in the 24 hours through midnight Friday. That included 10 in Beijing and six in the neighboring port city of Tianjin.

China’s official death toll stands at 4,636 out of 105,547 confirmed cases.

Xi’an has reported 2,053 cases since Dec. 9. None were reported Friday.