SUVA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Tonga will enforce a week-long hard lockdown on Sunday as the island nation reported 258 new COVID-19 cases over the last 24 hours.

According to Tonga's news website Matangi Tonga Online, Prime Minister Siaosi Sovaleni announced the lockdown, which will be enforced at 5:00 a.m. on Sunday until 5:00 a.m. local time on March 26, at a press conference via zoom on Friday.

He said that the night curfew will be moved to 8:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. local time for both the main island of Tongatapu and Vava'u, an island group consisting of one large island and 40 smaller ones.

According to the prime minister, the Tongan cabinet decided to revert to red alert from orange alert on the advice of the Ministry of Health following the continuing increase of positive cases recorded on Tongatapu and Vava'u and the need for Health teams to regroup. Therefore, all services such as all retail and wholesale business, banks, gas stations, bread shops and schools will be closed next week.

The Tongan government services will also be closed except for essential services, with respective CEOs to liaise with the Public Service Commission on work programs, but international ships and flights can still arrive in the island nation next week.

Tonga, which has a population of more than 100,000, has reported four COVID-19 deaths so far.

Currently, about 90 percent of Tonga's target population have received their second doses, 98 percent have received their first doses, and 47 percent have received booster shots. Enditem

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