The graduation for the National University of Samoa (N.U.S.) will proceed as planned next week. 

The N.U.S. Vice Chancellor, Professor Aiono Dr. Alec Ekeroma, said despite the widespread cancellation of public gatherings in other countries, Samoa was not facing danger from the coronavirus. 

“We don’t have the coronavirus yet, and we are reviewing things as we go,” he said. 

Last year the N.U.S. cancelled its Foundation student graduation and postponed the vocational studies graduation until April 2020 as a result of the measles epidemic. 

“We are guided by any notices [from] the Ministry of Health and the National Emergency Operation Center and so once they say we shouldn’t have any [large] gatherings we might have to postpone it again,” he said. 

But as you know we postponed the graduation from last year.”

The N.U.S. is one of the biggest graduations in the country. 

In 2018 a total of 381 students graduated from various programmes affiliated with the university

“Once we have a [coronavirus] case in the country then we will cancel,” he said. 

Aiono reiterated that once the Government issues a notice to cancel all the large gatherings they will adhere to the notice. 

This week the total number of cases in China rose to 80,860, of which more than 67,000 patients have recovered.

While China, the early epicenter of the outbreak, has still had more total confirmed cases than any other nation, infection rates in several other countries have surged in recent days. Italy, Europe's hardest hit country, now has more than 24,000 cases, Iran has almost 14,000, Spain has at least 7,000 and the United States as now reported more than 3,400 cases.

The combined global caseload stands at 169,446 as of Monday morning, with the death toll passing 6,500.