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COVID-19 Pandemic In Tonga
The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached Tonga on 29 October 2021 with a traveller who tested positive in quarantine. Several more cases were found in January and February 2022 in a minor outbreak during the aftermath of the 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai eruption and tsunami as other countries delivered aid. Tonga had followed a " Covid-free" policy. Background A novel coronavirus that caused a respiratory illness was identified in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, in December 2019, and was reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) on 31 December 2019, which confirmed its concern on 12 January 2020. WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January, and a pandemic on 11 March. The case fatality rate of COVID-19 is much lower than that of SARS, a related disease which emerged in 2002, but its transmission has been significantly greater, leading to a much greater total death toll. Timeline March 2020 On 27 March 20 ...
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Coronavirus Disease 2019
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever, fatigue, cough, breathing difficulties, loss of smell, and loss of taste. Symptoms may begin one to fourteen days after exposure to the virus. At least a third of people who are infected do not develop noticeable symptoms. Of those who develop symptoms noticeable enough to be classified as patients, most (81%) develop mild to moderate symptoms (up to mild pneumonia), while 14% develop severe symptoms ( dyspnea, hypoxia, or more than 50% lung involvement on imaging), and 5% develop critical symptoms ( respiratory failure, shock, or multiorgan dysfunction). Older people have a higher risk of developing severe symptoms. Some complications result in death. Some people continue to experience a range of effects ( long COVID) for mo ...
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Radio New Zealand
Radio New Zealand (), commonly known as RNZ or Radio NZ, is a New Zealand public service broadcaster and Crown entity. Established under the Radio New Zealand Act 1995, it operates news and current affairs station, RNZ National, and a classical music and jazz station, RNZ Concert, with full government funding from NZ On Air. Since 2014, the organisation's focus has been to transform from a radio broadcaster to a multimedia outlet, increasing its production of digital content in audio, video, and written forms, utilising rnz.co.nz and the RNZ app. The organisation plays a central role in New Zealand public broadcasting. The New Zealand Parliament fully funds its AM network, used in part for the broadcast of parliamentary proceedings. RNZ has a statutory role under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 to act as a "lifeline utility" in emergencies. It is also responsible for an international service, RNZ Pacific, which broadcasts to the South Pacific in both ...
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Tongan Government
The politics of Tonga take place in a framework of a constitutional monarchy, whereby the King of Tonga, King is the Head of State and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Tonga's Prime Minister is currently appointed by the King from among the members of Parliament after having won the support of a majority of its members. Executive power is vested in the Cabinet of Ministers. Legislative power is vested in the King in Parliament, and judicial power is vested in the supreme court. Tonga joined the Commonwealth of Nations in 1970, and the United Nations in 1999. While exposed to colonial forces, Tonga has never lost indigenous governance, a fact that makes Tonga unique in the Pacific and boosts confidence in the monarchical system. The British High Commission in Tonga closed in March 2006. Tonga's current king, Tupou VI, traces his line directly back through six generations of monarchs. The previous king, George Tupou V, born in 1946, continued to have ultimate control ...
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Rapid Antigen Test
A rapid antigen test (RAT), sometimes called a rapid antigen detection test (RADT), antigen rapid test (ART), or wikt:Appendix:Glossary#loosely, loosely just a rapid test, is a rapid diagnostic test suitable for point-of-care testing that directly detects the presence or absence of an antigen. RATs are a type of lateral flow test detecting antigens, rather than antibody, antibodies (Antibody titer, antibody tests) or nucleic acid (nucleic acid tests). Rapid tests generally give a result in 5 to 30 minutes, require minimal training or infrastructure, and have significant cost advantages. Rapid antigen tests for the detection of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, have been commonly used during the COVID-19 pandemic. For many years, an early and major class of RATs—the rapid strep tests for streptococci—were so often the referent when RATs or RADTs were mentioned that the two latter terms were often loosely treated as synonymous with those. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, ...
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Stuff (website)
Stuff is a New Zealand news media website owned by newspaper conglomerate Stuff Ltd (formerly called Fairfax). As of early 2024, it is the most popular news website in New Zealand, with a monthly unique audience of more than 2 million. Stuff was founded in 2000, and publishes breaking news, weather, sport, politics, video, entertainment, business and life and style content from Stuff Ltd's newspapers, which include New Zealand's second- and third-highest circulation daily newspapers, ''The Post'' and '' The Press'', and the highest circulation weekly, '' Sunday Star-Times'', as well as international news wire services. Stuff has won numerous awards at the Newspaper Publishers' Association awards including 'Best News Website or App' in 2014 and 2019, and 'Website of the Year' in 2013 and 2018, 'Best News Website in 2019', and 'Digital News Provider of the Year' in 2024 and 2025. History Independent Newspapers Ltd, 2000–2003 The former New Zealand media company Independ ...
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Saia Piukala
Saia Ma’u Piukala is a Tongan politician, surgeon, and former Cabinet Minister. Piukala was trained as a surgeon at the Fiji School of Medicine in Suva, Fiji. Before entering politics he worked as a surgeon for the Tongan Ministry of Health. He was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Tonga as representative for Vavaʻu 14 in the 2014 Tongan general election and was appointed Minister of Health in the cabinet of ʻAkilisi Pōhiva. He was re-elected in the 2017 election and reappointed as Minister of Health and Public Enterprises. In January 2019 a minor reshuffle saw him swap his Public Enterprises portfolio for Internal Affairs. In May 2019 Piukala was appointed to the World Health Organization executive board. Following the death of ʻAkilisi Pōhiva and his replacement by Pohiva Tuʻiʻonetoa in October 2019 he was not reappointed to Tuʻiʻonetoa's new Cabinet. He was re-elected in the 2021 election. On 28 December 2021 he was appointed to the Cabinet of S ...
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Siaosi Sovaleni
Siaosi ‘Ofakivahafolau Sovaleni (born 28 February 1970), styled Hon. Hu‘akavameiliku, is a Tongan politician who served as the prime minister of Tonga from 2021 until his resignation in 2024. He had previously served as a cabinet minister, and from 2014 to 2017, he was deputy prime minister of Tonga. He is the current estate holder of the village of Ha'asini. Early life Sovaleni is the son of former Deputy Prime Minister Langi Kavaliku. He attended Timaru Boys' High School in New Zealand and graduated in 1988. He was educated at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in computer science in 1992. He subsequently completed a master's degree at the University of Oxford, and an MBA at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. He worked as a public servant for Tonga's Ministry of Finance from 1996 to 2010, before working for the Pacific Community and Asian Development Bank. He returned to Tonga in 2013 to work as the Chief Exe ...
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Prime Minister Of Tonga
The prime minister of Tonga (historically referred to as the premier) is the head of government of Tonga. Tonga is a monarchy with the List of monarchs of Tonga, king, currently Tupou VI, former prime minister, as head of state. The current prime minister is ʻAisake Eke, who was elected on 24 December 2024 and appointed on 22 January 2025. Eke was elected with 16 votes. The office of prime minister was established by the Constitution of Tonga, Constitution of 1875, whose article 51 stipulates that the prime minister and other ministers are appointed and dismissed by the king. The prime minister is assisted by the Deputy Prime Minister of Tonga, deputy prime minister. 2000s democratization During the 2000s, the country experienced an increase in democratization. In March 2006, King Tāufaʻāhau Tupou IV appointed Feleti Sevele, a moderate member of the Human Rights and Democracy Movement, as prime minister. Sevele was the first commoner to hold this post since Shirley Wald ...
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HMAS Adelaide (L01)
HMAS ''Adelaide'' (L01) is the second ship of the Canberra-class landing helicopter dock, ''Canberra''-class landing helicopter dock's (LHD). Construction of the ship started at Navantia's Spanish shipyard, with steel-cutting in February 2010. The ship was laid down in February 2011, and launched on 4 July 2012. Delivery to Australia for fitting out at BAE Systems Australia's facilities in Victoria was scheduled for 2013, but did not occur until early 2014. Despite construction delays and predictions, the ship was commissioned in December 2015. Design The ''Canberra''-class design is based on the warship Spanish ship Juan Carlos I (L61), ''Juan Carlos I'', built by Navantia for the Spanish Navy.Brown, ''Spanish designs are Australia's choice for warship programmes'' The contract was awarded to Navantia and Australian company Tenix Defence following a request for tender which ran from February 2004 to June 2007, beating the enlarged Mistral-class amphibious assault ship, ''Mistr ...
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Zero-COVID
Zero-COVID, also known as COVID-Zero and "Find, Test, Trace, Isolate, and Support" (FTTIS), was a Public health mitigation of COVID-19, public health policy implemented by some countries, especially Chinese government response to COVID-19, China, during the COVID-19 pandemic.Anna Llupià, Rodríguez-Giralt, Anna Fité, Lola Álamo, Laura de la Torre, Ana Redondo, Mar Callau and Caterina Guinovart (2020)What Is a Zero-COVID Strategy , Barcelona Institute for Global Health – COVID-19 & response strategy. "The strategy of control and maximum suppression (zero-COVID) has been implemented successfully in a number of countries. The objective of this strategy is to keep transmission of the virus as close to zero as possible and ultimately to eliminate it entirely from particular geographical areas. The strategy aims to increase the capacity to identify and trace chains of transmission and to identify and manage outbreaks, while also integrating economic, psychological, social and healt ...
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The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust Limited. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in its journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. S ...
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