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PS Health – Press Statement 04-05-2021
Statement by Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical Services, Dr James Fong.

Bula Vinaka.

I know we don’t start these announcements at the same time every day. I wish we could. But the nature of 24/7 testing means new developments can come about at a moment’s notice. When that happens, rather than rush to meet an announcement deadline, we obtain all of the information, tailor our strategy, and announce those changes clearly to the public.

We’ve considered setting a cut-off time for receiving new information and scheduling press conferences at a set time every day. But COVID does not have a cut-off time. If that’s how we tried to manage things, we could end up confirming a new case late in the afternoon, but not announce it at that day’s press conference.

Fiji is a small place. We know from experience that even the slightest possibility of a new case can spark rumours and misinformation quite quickly. To stay ahead of the coconut wireless –– or what I call the “media coconut wireless” –– we try very hard to keep you informed of the latest developments as soon as we can with verified information. We will continue to review this strategy. In the meantime, we appreciate you taking the time to tune in and be with us –– even if it may be at different hours of the afternoon.

Today, we have no new cases of COVID-19 to report. But we have some important updates to share about our existing cases.

Following confirmation that two doctors at the Lautoka Hospital tested positive for COVID-19, we launched an immediate and intensive contact tracing exercise. These two doctors worked closely together, so we’re quite sure one passed the virus to the other. But individually, they both came into contact with many others. So far, 98 have been identified.

Many of these contacts — unsurprisingly –– are their colleagues who work at Lautoka Hospital, including doctors and nurses. As per protocol, these Fijians must be entered into two weeks of quarantine. This has seriously affected our staffing capacity, particularly for medical and surgical services. We have re-deployed staff from other facilities to cover these gaps, but needless to say, it will be a very demanding two weeks of shifts for the staff at the Lautoka Hospital. Still, we are confident we can manage.

Some of the other contacts are patients. Given that they were seeking treatment for other ailments, we have identified these individuals as particularly high-risk. All have been identified, swabbed, and entered into quarantine.

Neither doctor has been directly linked to other existing cases of COVID-19. But our investigation is still in its early phase, and we are not ruling anything out. As a result, we are also testing all the staff of the COVID-19 isolation ward.

I mentioned yesterday that both doctors have careFIJI installed and kept it running. Thank God they did. So far, we have identified 20 close contacts through the app. We found these contacts very quickly. We did not need to publish lists of times and locations online to do so. Instead, the app provided that information in a matter of minutes after the doctors uploaded their careFIJI information.

Some of these contacts may never have been identified through traditional contact tracing investigations –– which, as I’ve mentioned, relies mainly on the patient’s memory. Ask any lawyer, police officer or judge and they’ll tell you: Memory is an imperfect tool. People forget things all of the time. But careFIJI does not forget. As long as everyone has the app installed and keeps their bluetooth turned on, it tells us exactly who has been near someone living with COVID-19. By providing us with that information quickly, the app does more than save time, energy and resources for my teams –– it saves Fijian lives.

During past conferences, I’ve taken plenty of queries from the media about careFIJI. I think it is fair to say that there was an air of skepticism around some of your questions. I understand that skepticism is something of a tradecraft for some reporters. That’s all well and good. But I hope that the proven success of this app finds its way into your reporting. I hope you will help us encourage more downloads of the app and ensure that the phone’s Bluetooth is turned on to make our contact tracing as effective and efficient as possible –– and I hope you join us in crediting the digitalFIJI team for this app’s development.

My teams are already extremely experienced contact tracers. They are a model to other nations. The widespread adoption of careFIJI simply takes them to another level of their effectiveness and efficiency.

The thoroughness of our contact tracing means that the Ministry has never needed to publish the names of any of our patients. Sometimes, patients choose to share their COVID-positive status –– but doing so is just that, a personal choice. So please stop asking us about the personal details of any patients. We will never give them. Physician-patient privilege is sacred and we will not violate it –– that is my answer today, and it will be my answer tomorrow and every day after.

I raise this issue because yesterday the media insisted on asking about the personal details of some recently-discharged patients. Not long after, the identities of our two doctors who tested positive for COVID-19 were leaked on social media. Their personal choice to reveal their status was taken from them, and it has impacted them both quite badly. Those who are sharing their identities should stop. I know that preventing information about a person from being shared on social media is akin to trying to stop the tides with a broom. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try. I want to appeal to people to think twice before they share this sort of private information. It reflects poorly on your values and respect for your fellow Fijians. The question you should ask yourself is: Would you like your personal information shared if you or one of your loved ones contracted the coronavirus? The sharing of private and confidential information does real damage to COVID-19 patients who truly do not need any more stress in their lives. We can do better, Fiji, and we should.

Lautoka has existed as a containment area now for 16 days and today is day 9 after the recent reset. I know life in Lautoka is nowhere near normal. These newest cases do mean the containment area may last for some time longer. So far, our contact tracing stemming from these cases is progressing well, and we will make an epidemiological assessment of the cases to determine whether the containment area protocols should continue, and if so for how long. But we cannot make that determination at this stage. I will let you know as soon as we can.

I want to say a word about our isolation facilities.

Every day our doctors, nurses, and healthcare officials leave their homes and head to work knowing we face risks to our own health and wellbeing. Not only from COVID but from any one of the many infections and diseases that we treat in the course of caring for patients. So it is no surprise that –– throughout the pandemic –– healthcare staff serving on the frontlines have faced the greatest risks of exposure to the coronavirus. In Fiji and in clinics, surgery theatres, and ICUs worldwide, healthcare workers work in close proximity with COVID-positive patients. We wear the proper PPE, but the risk of infection is always present. If we do happen to contract COVID, we don’t play by a different set of rules. We go into the same isolation wards as everyone else, the same wards that our colleagues are responsible for managing. So when it comes to these facilities, please trust we care deeply about seeing them run well. We know it could be us, someone we love, or any of our fellow citizens –– all of whom we are sworn to care for –– who are in those facilities. And given that we are in the business of saving lives, please trust that these facilities are equipped to offer the best possible care to those who may develop a severe case of the virus. And if you do have COVID –– I want to emphasize again: There is no safer place for you to be than in our isolation facilities.

When I can, I like to end these announcements with some positive news. First, we’ll be adding four new GeneXpert testing machines to our capacity, adding to the additional machine donated by Oceania Hospitals, that will boost our testing capacity by about 480 tests per day. We have been shattering our daily testing records nearly every day. With these machines at our disposal, we expect that streak to continue.

I’m also happy to report that –– as of today –– our teams have administered all 4,000 COVID-19 vaccine doses allocated for Suva. That deployment went off without a hitch as high-risk individuals, including the elderly, more frontline healthcare workers, bankers, and taxi, minibus and bus drivers came forward to be protected. I’ll remind everyone, getting one dose does not mean you are vaccinated –– it takes two on a 10 to 12-week timeline. No one in Fiji is fully vaccinated. All of us must practice strict adherence to our health protection measures until such time that we achieve the full immunity of our eligible population.

We expect to roll out the remaining 20,000 doses through the West by the end of this week. The day we’re able to roll these vaccines out everywhere in Fiji into the arms of every eligible Fijian is the day that lockdowns –– like the ones we just endured here in Suva –– become all but unnecessary. More doses are on the way. Please register online, come forward when you have the chance, and help us take Fiji into the post-pandemic future that is already being embraced around the world.
COVID-19 Vaccination Update

Public Notice

The Ministry of Health and Medical Services wishes to advise that due to the high uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine, the vaccination campaign in Suva has concluded as of 04 May 2021.

Please be advised that the vaccination campaign at Prince Charles Park in Nadi and Tilak High School in Lautoka is currently ongoing and will end once the vaccine stock finishes.

The target group for this phase of vaccination roll-out includes:

  • Persons living with disabilities.
  • Individuals above 60 years of age.
  • Individuals with Co-morbid issues such as diabetes, hypertension, heart conditions, asthma, HIV, cancer, patients undergoing renal dialysis and any other medical condition.
  • Part of Essential Services: air and rescue services, air traffic control services, ports services, civil aviation, telecommunications services, food and sanitary manufacturing plants and services, electricity services, emergency services, fire services, health and hospital services, lighthouse services, meteorological services, mine pumping, ventilation and winding, supply and distribution of fuel and gas, power, telecommunications, garbage collection, transport services, water and sewage services, Fiji National Provident Fund, Fiji Revenue and Customs Services, civil service, private security services and road services.

The Ministry of Health will announce when more vaccines are available in the country. Until then, all vaccine eligible individuals above 18 years of age are urged to register for the vaccine at https://vra.digitalfiji.gov.fj// .

For further queries on registration, please email: vrsupport@digitalfiji.gov.fj

COVID-19 Update – 04-05-2021

Media Release

COVID-19 Update

Tuesday May 4th 2021

As announced by the Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical Services today, we have 0 new cases to report.

There have also been 7 recoveries, leaving 44 active cases in isolation.

Fiji has had 121 cases in total, with 75 recoveries and 2 deaths, since our first case was reported on March 19th 2020.

A total of 56,266 COVID-19 laboratory tests have been conducted, with a daily average of 1084 tests per day over the last 7 days, and a weekly average of 5995 tests per week over the last 2 weeks, with a record 6821 tests done last week. Testing has increased in line with the response to the recent local cases, with 1278 tests conducted yesterday. Our overall test positivity is 0.2% and our 7 day average daily test positivity is 0.4%.

-ENDS-

COVID-19 Update – 03-05-2021

Media Release
COVID-19 Update

Monday, May 3rd 2021

As announced by the Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical Services today, we have 2 new cases to report.

They are both doctors that work at the Lautoka hospital, a 25-year-old female and a 30-year-old male. Both doctors have been entered into isolation and their close household contacts have been quarantined. Further contact tracing and testing of hospital staff are ongoing. We are early into our investigation, but at this stage, they do not appear to have any links to existing cases or events of interest, such as the Tavakubu funeral. Also, while they did work in the hospital, they did not work in the isolation ward where they would have had interaction with COVID-positive patients.

With these latest cases, we now have 51 active cases in isolation. Sixteen are border quarantine cases, 31 are locally transmitted cases, and 4 are under investigation to determine the source of transmission.

Total active cases in isolation = 51 (16 border quarantine cases, 31 locally transmitted cases, 4 under investigation)

Fiji has had 121 cases in total, with 68 recoveries and 2 deaths, since our first case was reported on March 19th, 2020.

A total of 54,988 COVID-19 laboratory tests have been conducted, with a daily average of 974 tests per day over the last 7 days, and a weekly average of 5995 tests per week over the last 2 weeks, with a record 6821 tests done last week.

Testing has increased in line with the response to the recent local cases, with 1736 tests conducted yesterday- another record. Please note that testing numbers from CWM and Lautoka Hospitals have not yet been received so the actual number of tests done yesterday may be higher. Our overall test positivity is 0.2% and our 7-day average daily test positivity is 0.4%.

PS Health – Press Statement 03-05-2021

Statement by Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical Services, Dr James Fong.

Bula Vinaka.
After another 1736 COVID-19 tests, we have confirmed two new cases of COVID-19. They are both doctors who work at the Lautoka hospital.

The first, a 25-year-old female doctor, presented at a screening clinic today with COVID-like symptoms. A few hours ago, she tested positive for the virus. The second, a 30-year-old male doctor, was tested as part of contact tracing for the first doctor.

Both doctors have been entered into isolation and their close household contacts have been quarantined. We are early into our investigation, but at this stage, they do not appear to have any links to existing cases or events of interest, such as the Tavakubu funeral. Also, while they did work in the hospital, they did not work in the isolation ward where they would have had interaction with COVID-positive patients. So while we are very early into this investigation, we must treat these cases as instances of community transmission until it is proven otherwise.

All contacts within the hospital will be screened, tested, and isolated as appropriate. As you can imagine, this is a massive and complex undertaking for the Lautoka hospital team, and we are providing the support they need. This includes sending in medical teams from other medical facilities to replace staff who have been identified as close contacts of these cases and stood down to be isolated.

We have one advantage — both doctors installed the careFIJI app and had it running. So while our contact tracing teams are conducting their work on the ground, a digital net is being cast far and wide for Fijians who may have had contact with these two doctors. careFIJI has identified one contact already, and Lautoka is safer for it. While these two doctors responsibly had the app running, we know the effectiveness of the app’s contact tracing function depends on how many other people also had it running on their phones. So, if you do not yet have the app installed — do it right now, and make sure it is running every time you leave the house. It will not use data, it will not chew battery — it will save lives.

We also know that, as frontline healthcare workers, they had both received the first dose of the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine. However, as we have explained before, you need two doses of this vaccine, given 10-12 weeks apart, to be considered fully vaccinated and develop the protective immune response conferred by the vaccine. So, medically, neither doctor was considered “vaccinated” –– not yet. For either of them to be protected, they must be fully vaccinated. For Fiji to be protected, we must fully vaccinate our eligible population.

After further investigation we have narrowed down the number of work contacts of the case 113 –– the garment factory employees –– from 877 to 771. We have tested all of these contacts plus some secondary contacts – with all 791 now testing negative. We continue to investigate whether there are other contacts that need to be screened and tested.

While we do not have any positive results yet from the contacts at the two garment factories, that could change at any point throughout the 14-day incubation window for the virus. That is why these contacts are all under a home quarantine order that will last two weeks from their last contact with case 113. Because we’ve acted quickly to contain these staff, if any do develop the virus, it will be securely detected while they are in quarantine.

There is one reason, above all, as to how we successfully located all of these Fijians. It was because the more than 300,000 people living in Suva and Nausori did their jobs this weekend by staying home. I’ve spoken to the Police, they made only a handful of arrests. Otherwise, the streets were clear. Because of that level of cooperation, my teams were able to do their duty well and quickly, and the lockdown measures came to their end, on schedule, at 0400 hours today. Suva and Nausori are now two separate containment areas. Within both, the restricted movement for essential purposes will be allowed.

Up until midnight, food packs were being delivered to Fijians with a genuine need for assistance. I want to be clear here: We ran this programme for those in the lockdown area because they could not access supermarkets or shops. With supermarkets and shops opening from the early hours of this morning, our food pack assistance is no longer in place. The exact details of the deliveries that were made, as well as plans for any future distribution, will be provided by the Ministry of Economy tomorrow.

Now that the markets are open, we need shop owners and customers to avoid turning them into dangerous hotspots for further transmission. Please ensure that physical distancing is practised, everyone is wearing a mask, and that everyone has the careFIJI app installed and turned on.

And please remember, any movement of any nature can put you at risk. So please only move when you need to move, and return home as soon as you have finished your essential business.

One of our screening zones was the island of Moturiki. Three individuals on the island, from Naicabecabe village, had attended the Tavakubu funeral and spent time with case 74, the staff from the quarantine facility. After a full 14-days of quarantine since their exposure, they have all returned four consecutive negative test results for COVID-19. So, the lockdown of the island has lifted. However, as is the case with all of our rural and maritime communities, we encourage families on Moturiki to stay where they are, stay at home, and limit their movement as much as possible.

Our contact tracing is progressing well elsewhere, with one exception. We have one team from the Malomalo 7s held on April 16th-17th at Lawaqa Park Sigatoka that we have not fully accounted for. This team — Lion Heart — shared a hostel and played with our case number 98, so it is vital we locate all of their players and any other persons who closely interacted or traveled with the team. If you play for this team or know someone who plays for this team, please call 158 right now.

There are currently six large containment areas throughout the country: Suva, Nausori, Lami, Rakiraki, Nadi, and Lautoka. The borders of each are highly restricted and movement within the areas should be limited. We are not considering rolling back the measures for any of these zones until we have a clearer idea of the risk posed to the public. That will require more tests, more screening, and — quite simply — more time. The virus may be lying in wait within any of these containment areas, time is the only strategy that will expose those cases. If we give in to the urge to relax restrictions too early, we may lose our chance to contain the virus for good. That has happened elsewhere — it cannot happen in Fiji.

I saw that yesterday Australia suspended the return of its residents and citizens from India. I want to be clear with everyone: Fiji suspended all international passenger flights from all countries on the 22nd of April, nine days ago. We are not labelling countries as high-risk or low-risk — we simply are not taking passengers from any countries at all. With the exception of those Fijians travelling for medical procedures and those with special approval granted by the Ministry, our quarantine capacity has been directed entirely dedicated towards contacts of local cases in Fiji.

Before we even consider reopening international passenger travel to Fiji, we need a much firmer grasp on this outbreak. And given this outbreak’s index case was at the border, we will be revamping our quarantine facilities with additional CCTV cameras and strengthening our protocols to protect against human error to an even more stringent degree than before.
As for the rest of our COVID-containment infrastructure, our isolation facilities are currently operating at 12% occupancy. It’s our commitment that these facilities are well-prepared and well-supplied, including with food and proper bedding, well before they admit new patients. We did have some hiccups with regards to the early logistics. Those have been worked out. These centres are equipped for comfort and for the care a patient needs to recover from COVID-19. For those living with the virus, there is no safer place to be.

As we shift into the next phase of containment, we are prioritising non-school isolation facilities so that –– once it’s safe –– we’re ready to resume classes. Our students are currently learning from home, which has to suffice for now. But there is a proven benefit to in-person learning, and every day we delay our student’s return to classes risks long-term harm to our human capital.

In consultation with the Ministry of Education, we are considering re-opening the schools on 24 May 2021 — but that judgment depends entirely on our COVID situation at that time. Still, I want parents and students watching to know that getting our children back in classrooms is an urgent priority for the Ministry. Until such time, parents must keep their children at home. Do not bring them shopping, do not send them out with friends. Please, keep them at home.

We contained last year’s outbreak of COVID-19 in 30 days. It has been 15 days since the confirmation of the case that sparked the outbreak we face today, and I’m worried that too many of us think this containment effort will play out on a relatively similar timeline. I very much doubt that it will. It could end soon — I hope it does. But the data is telling us a different story. We are not up against an identical enemy this time around, the chains of transmission are more widespread and the variant is more transmissible. The risks are greater, and our response must be more decisive.

My teams are ready for a containment strategy that lasts months, at a minimum. Every Fijian must be ready as well. Good habits — such as mask-wearing, covering coughs and sneezes, staying home when sick, proper handwashing, physical distancing, keeping careFIJI on, and limiting movement — are not temporary or emergency measures. They will be with us for the foreseeable future. Learn them well, and practice them all. The rest of the world has embraced a new way of doing things, a new and safer way of living — so must Fiji. And we should use this time to COVID-proof our lives, our places of work, and our public spaces as much as possible. That will save lives today, and it will keep us safe through whatever comes our way.

I felt the media handled yesterday’s zero-case announcement responsibly in their reporting –– I ask the same of you today. The war against the virus is far from won. We have to test many, many more Fijians in order to get a grip on the spread and stop it. Our case numbers may seem low next to the hundreds of thousands being recorded around the world every day. But they won’t stay low if we do not act responsibly. We must deal soberly with the scale of the threat we face and report honestly on the measures we know can work — including the use of the careFIJI contact tracing application and the widespread administration of COVID-19 vaccines. Science has served us well before –– if we show our respect for science through the actions and decisions we all make every day, it will serve us well again. Keep the faith, Fiji, we will succeed.