COVID-19 Update – 19-05-2021

Media Release

COVID-19 Update

Wednesday May 19th 2021

As announced by the Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical Services today, we have 11 new cases to report. The first six are related to the Vunimono/Nadali cluster and were in quarantine. The next 5 are household contacts of a previous case. They have been in a quarantine facility in Nausori, and tested negative for their entry swabs while being admitted to the facility, but now have tested positive for their 2nd swabs in quarantine.

Three patients have recovered, which means there are now 57 active cases in isolation facilities. 2 are border quarantine cases, 44 local transmission, and 11 are under investigation to determine the source of transmission. Cases under investigation are considered as community transmission until proven otherwise.

Total active cases in isolation = 57 (2 border quarantine cases, 44 locally transmitted cases, 11 under investigation)

Fiji has had 189 cases in total, with 128 recoveries and 4 deaths, since our first case was reported on March 19th 2020.

A total of 78,324 COVID-19 laboratory tests had been conducted since we started testing in early 2020. Due to the recent temporary shutdown of Fiji CDC, testing numbers have dropped, with the daily average of testing over the last 7 days at 1058 tests per day, compared to over 1700 per day before the shutdown. With the resumption of testing at Fiji CDC, and delivery of new GeneXpert machines to the divisional labs, a total of 2974 samples were tested yesterday, a new daily record. Also as a result of the shutdown the 7 day average daily test positivity has risen to 0.8%, with test positivity at 0.4% in the last day. An average of 1.2 tests per 1000 population was conducted daily over the last 7 days, with 3.4 tests per 1000 population in the last day.

-ENDS-