PNG outbreak

Papua New Guinea's parliament has adjourned for almost four months. The adjournment allows prime minister James Marape to avoid a no confidence vote in which former prime minister Peter O'Neill was nominated alternate prime minister. However, PNG's constitution doesn't allow confidence votes against a sitting prime minister in the 12 months before an election. The country is due to go to the polls in July next year. The adjournment was deemed necessary after testing showed a quarter of staff at parliament are infected with Covid19. From preliminary sampling of 167 people within the parliament precinct, 42 – or a quarter of them – tested positive for the virus. Most of those infected were staff rather than MPs, but several MPs tested positive earlier this year.