(MCS) — Each year, Mount Carmel School and its AlumKnight Association facilitates a selection process to determine the Class of the Year, Legacy Teacher of the Year, Millennium Falcon of
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Far-flung Pacific island nations have been among the most successful in the world at keeping COVID-19 at bay by swiftly closing their borders and imposing strict quarantine measures.
With poor hospital infrastructure and high rates of underlying health conditions Pacific governments weren’t going to take any chances. And for the most part it’s worked.
Island nations and territories including Kiribati, Nauru, Palau and Tonga are believed to still be completely virus-free, while others such as Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa have recorded some cases, but none via community transmission.
But economically, these places, so heavily reliant on tourism, have been badly hit. Which is why the procurement and rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine is now top of the agenda across the Pacific, in the hopes of re-opening the borders and jumpstarting the economy.
THE islandsâ 133rd Covid-19 case since March 28, 2020 was reported  on Monday.
Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. spokesman Lee Tenorio said the latest case was identified by travel screening and confirmed diagnosis through testing upon arrival, he added. The individual has been safely in quarantine and was moved to the designated isolation area for close monitoring, Tenorio said.
CHCC has already initiated contact tracing for the most immediate contacts of the new confirmed case, including passengers on the same flight, he added.
Currently, four individuals are in isolation and 131 have been released. There had been two deaths â the first in March 2020, and the second in April 2020.
THEÂ administration has yet to remit over $4.7 million to the Public School System, PSS Finance Director Arlene Lizama said during a recent Board of Education meeting.
Board of Education Vice Chairman Herman Atalig, left, speaks while Chairman Andrew Orsini listens during a BOE meeting on Capital Hill Thursday.
Photo by Emmanuel T. Erediano
In related news, U.S. Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan said he has introduced three bills in the U.S. House of Representatives that would provide more federal funding to CNMI education.
On Thursday, Lizama told the BOE that the CNMIÂ government was supposed to have transferred to PSS a total of $8 million by Jan. 27 based on the fiscal year 2021 budget or Public Law 21-35.
THE CNMI, which reported three new Covid-19 cases over the weekend, was commended in an article posted Saturday on RealClearHealth.com as a “case study in how to respond effectively to