MHMS FIJI
MHMS FIJI

Category Public Advisory

National Announcement by the Permanent Secretary for Health 11-05-2021
Statement by Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Health and Medical Services, Dr James Fong.
After another 2217 tests yesterday, another daily record of testing, we have confirmed 12 new cases of COVID-19 since our last briefing. All of these cases are from Makoi and are close contacts of case 140, the woman who presented to the Makoi Health Centre yesterday with COVID symptoms. Four of our positive patients are her household members, seven are from an adjoining home, and one is a secondary contact. All have been entered into isolation.
As mentioned yesterday, case 140 presented to Makoi Health Centre, and was immediately treated as a suspected case by the medical staff, who provided care in full personal protective equipment. And once she tested positive that same day, we quickly were able to identify the people with whom that person had come into close contact, so we were able to take immediate measures to help to stop the spread. This shows that our reporting, screening, testing and contact-tracing procedures are working as they were intended.
However, we know that since a large number of this person’s close contacts have now tested positive, this means that there has been a significant amount of movement and potential for transmission of the virus to others. Case 140’s travel history, and the work history of one of her contacts, has required we close three grocery stores in Suva for decontamination. We’re also testing the employees. Those stores are not being closed indefinitely. They will reopen as soon as decontamination is completed.
The contact between this individual and members of an adjoining household is troubling –– and it should serve as a learning opportunity for all of us. Our bubbles must be limited to our households –– to the people who share the four walls of our home, not our neighbours, not our friends, not even our family from across the road, we should only interact with the members of our household and no one else. Call your friends, call your family, call your neighbors –– do not see them or visit with them. Please do not party your way into an isolation facility. If you are outside, it must be for an essential reason. If you interact with others who are not members of your household, it should happen two metres apart and both of you should be wearing masks properly.
Let’s remember, this cluster began with another case of unknown origin. So that means there could still be a contagious case or cases among the public we have yet to identify that may still pose a threat to all of us every time we make the decision to leave our homes. Home is where you are safest. If you leave the home, wear a mask and make sure you have careFIJI installed with Bluetooth switched on.
Based on the worrying rise of clusters and cases, I’ve been working with my fellow permanent secretaries, as well as the private sector, on scenario-planning based on the results of our continuous testing –– that includes the possibility of a full lockdown of Viti Levu.
In that event, our priority is on locking down the virus in the active fashion I spoke on yesterday. For the lockdown to be decisive, it must be well-planned and prolonged enough to last for the entire incubation period.
The goal of the lockdown is to stop all unnecessary movement and mixing between different people. Informal gatherings and other high-risk activities will carry significant penalties. Essential movement will be highly-controlled.
Businesses and the private sector must take on a much higher level of responsibility if they expect to operate at all. I want to assure the public that –– if we take the lockdown route –– they will be given ample notice, not hours, but days, to prepare and for government to allocate resources appropriately.
When I can, I like to end these announcements with some good news –– news that shines a light on everyday heroes, and that shows the strength of the Fijian spirit despite the challenge we face today.
The MV Vueveti, our medical carrier vessel, was dispatched to Lautoka to offer healthcare services soon after we transformed Lautoka Hospital into a self-contained COVID care facility. Today, onboard the vessel, a surgical team performed the first Caesarean section operation, delivering a healthy baby boy to a very proud mum. Almost in time for mother’s day.
As part of our delivery team was a midwife who came out of retirement to serve the nation in our hour of need. She came forward because she knew her talents could be put to use. She came forward because she’s a proud Fijian –– ready to give more of her time and effort on top of the lifetime she’s already spent caring for her fellow Fijians. That is the spirit that will guide us through this crisis –– a spirit of selfless solidarity. We can’t all deploy on medical vessels to perform life-saving emergency surgeries. But we can all take simple steps –– like good handwashing, like maintaining physical distance, like avoiding gatherings, and like installing careFIJI –– that protect our most vulnerable Fijians and that pave the way to better days for the nation. Let’s take them together. Let’s do this together. We can, we have, and we will again.
COVID-19 Update – 10-05-2021

Media Release

COVID-19 Update

Monday May 10th 2021

As announced by the Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical Services today, we have 1 new case to report.

The new case is a woman from Kalokalo, Makoi, who presented to the Makoi health centre today with COVID-19 symptoms. At this very early stage in the investigation, no link has been established between this case and others. Investigation is ongoing to determine the source of infection and this will be considered as another case of com-munity transmission until proven otherwise.

3 more patients have recovered, so there are now 36 active cases remaining in isola-tion facilities. 7 are border quarantine cases, 23 local transmission, and 6 are under investigation to determine the source of transmission. The recently deceased case (our 3rd COVID-19 death) and a recently recovered case are also still under investiga-tion to determine the source of transmission. Cases under investigation are consid-ered as community transmission until proven otherwise.

Total active cases in isolation = 36 (7 border quarantine cases, 23 locally transmitted cases, 6 under investigation)

Fiji has had 140 cases in total, with 101 recoveries and 3 deaths, since our first case was reported on March 19th 2020.

A total of 66,605 COVID-19 laboratory tests have been conducted, with a daily aver-age of 1660 tests per day over the last 7 days, and 1380 tests conducted yesterday. Yesterday’s test count from 2 labs has not yet been received so the actual daily testing number for yesterday is higher than currently reported. The weekly average is 8529 tests per week over the last 2 weeks, with a record 10,237 tests done last week. The overall test positivity is 0.2% and 7 day average daily test positivity is 0.2%. An aver-age of 1.9 tests per 1000 population was conducted daily over the last 7 days, and 9.6 per 1000 population per week averaged over the last 2 weeks.

-ENDS-

PS Health – Press Statement 10-05-2021
Statement by Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Health and Medical Services, Dr James Fong.
Bula Vinaka.
After another 1380 tests, we have one new case to announce today.
The new case is a woman from Kalokalo, Makoi who presented to the Makoi health centre today with COVID symptoms. At this very early stage in the investigation, no link has been established between this case and others. We’ll be treating this as another case of community transmission until proven otherwise. The contact tracing, testing and isolation protocols are currently activated and the centre is closed for now.
Due to the steadily rising number of cases across Viti Levu, the borders of all six containment areas –– Lautoka, Nadi, Rakiraki, Lami, Suva and Nausori –– are being maintained. The confirmation of cases of unknown origin, in particular, indicates the virus could still be present in all six areas, so the borders must be enforced, as must the other restrictions we have in place. When the data tell us to proceed in a different direction –– we’ll tell you.
My teams and I sit down every day to go over how we’re managing the nation’s COVID containment strategy. I encourage every household and community to spend at least one day per week reviewing how your group –– or bubble –– is managing the risks of this outbreak. Take some time, talk through the schedules and routines of the people who share your “bubbles” with you. Talk with your children about how the virus can spread. Sometimes telling people what to do isn’t enough. We have to explain how our measures work and why it’s important we adhere to them.
For the benefit of the hundreds of thousands of Fijians who hear these announcements, I have explained how the virus travels and what is proven to stop its spread. We publish these announcements in vernacular languages as well. I’m asking those who do tune in for these announcements to help spread these messages faster than the virus spreads itself. You do not need a medical degree to understand why it is important to wear masks or wash your hands. If you can turn your phone on, you can install careFIJI and keep Bluetooth turned on –– it’s very simple. And the difference between a crowded shop and the safety of your own home should be obvious to everyone.
Movement across Viti Levu is currently restricted for essential purposes only. The purpose of limiting movement is to limit mixing between people. We are dealing with a highly transmissible variant and several unknown chains of transmission, so we want people to operate in “bubbles” and stay in their bubbles as much as possible. If the virus stays within one person, and that person does not mix with other people, the virus eventually dies, because it has no new hosts to infect.
Our next steps are being informed by the best available science. They will be taken based on the data we gather from contact tracing and testing, with advice from other ministries and the experts from the WHO, along with input from businesses and organisations, all of which we need to have fully invested in the success of our containment strategy. From an epidemiological standpoint, from an economic standpoint, and from an employment standpoint –– we are considering all angles of this wide-reaching crisis.
You’ll remember the last lockdown we implemented was limited to Suva and Nausori, and it was done for the purposes of contact tracing. It came into effect suddenly, so that those contacts could be located. And it worked, we found everyone we needed to find, and it ended quickly. A more sustained lockdown, however, will require a more strategic approach.
With a full year of experience behind us, we have a much greater understanding of the virus and a range of tools to use to fight it –– including stronger testing capacity and the careFIJI app. We can be targeted in our approach so that if we do lock down an area, or even all of Viti Levu, we do not place undue hardship on people and businesses. In other words, future lockdowns, should they be needed, will be targeted and active. They will be targeted because the lockdown area will be defined as narrowly as possible. And they will be active because we will endeavour to permit the broadest range of movement and economic activity possible, in bubbles that mitigate widespread transmission of the virus. We want essential services to continue, and we want as many as people as possible to go to their jobs and open their businesses. We cannot expect our economy to recover if we shut entire industries for weeks on end. Some of those jobs –– particularly in manufacturing –– may never come back.
Businesses, organisations, communities, and individuals are all in this campaign together. All of us are only as strong as our weakest link. Adherence to our COVID-safe measures, everywhere in Fiji, at every level of society, is the only sustainable way to manage this crisis. Whatever step we take, whether that is legally mandating mask-wearing or the use of careFIJI, or even re-introducing a 24-hour curfew, our success will ultimately come down to the diligence and the vigilance of the public. Many people are making adjustments to keep themselves and their loved ones safe –– we see you, and we appreciate you. But too many of us are still pretending as if there is no threat in our midst; as if the world is still the way it was more than one year ago before the coronavirus spread from country to country like wildfire. This pandemic has changed societies in long-lasting ways. It has changed the way people interact. It has changed the way people do business. And Fiji must change with the world.
I also want to address some confusion about the purposes of the Fiji Emergency Medical Assistance Team (FEMAT) field hospitals. The FEMAT field hospital in Lautoka takes the strain off Lautoka Hospital, which is now designated for the care of COVID patients. The Field Hospital treats the cases the hospitals would normally expect to treat – -acute cases, accidents, childbirths, and other non-elective surgeries, for example. We are doing this because we don’t want to put non-infected patients in the same hospitals with infected patients. There is too much risk of transmission, and we can’t have the medical staff going from one group of patients to the other.
While the field hospital is technically only for emergency care, we will see whoever comes through the gate, aside, of course, from any patients showing COVID-like symptoms. Maternity care will also be done in the FEMAT Hospital while deliveries will be done on board the MV Veivueti. Further care of sick mothers and babies will be in the new Ba Hospital.
With our Lautoka Hospital now fully dedicated as a COVID care facility, I want to thank groups –– like the Denarau Corporation Limited –– for helping us provision the personnel who are living and working in the hospital, as well as the private doctors who will soon be offering treatments and consultations to those who would normally go to public hospitals for non-COVID care. Regardless of whether new restrictions come into effect, or others relax, support from businesses and civil society will be critical. In this campaign, the nation needs to work as a unit. We are stronger together against whatever comes our way. Whether it is through the simple act of staying home or direct support for our healthcare staff, we’re grateful for your solidarity with the Ministry.
COVID-19 Update – 09-05-2021

Media Release

COVID-19 Update

Sunday May 9th 2021

As announced by the Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical Services today, we have 3 new cases to report.

These new cases are all linked to case number 136, the gentleman from Saru, Lautoka who presented with COVID-like symptoms to the Natabua health centre and tested positive on Friday. One of the new cases is his wife, another is his daughter, and the third was a primary contact of his wife.  All three have been in isolation since yesterday. The contact tracers are locating and quarantining their close contacts. All other known primary contacts relating to the three have tested negative.

2 more patients have recovered, so now there are 38 active cases remaining in isolation facilities. 7 are border quarantine cases, 26 local transmission, and 5 are under investigation to determine the source of transmission. The recently deceased case (our 3rd COVID-19 death) and a recently recovered case are still under investigation to determine the source of transmission and, along with the other 5, are currently considered to be cases of community transmission.

Total active cases in isolation = 38 (7 border quarantine cases, 26 locally transmitted cases, 5 under investigation)

Fiji has had 139 cases in total, with 98 recoveries and 3 deaths, since our first case was reported on March 19th 2020.

A total of 65,225 COVID-19 laboratory tests have been conducted, with a daily average of 1710 tests per day over the last 7 days, and 1616 tests conducted yesterday. Our weekly average is 8529 tests per week over the last 2 weeks, with a record 10,237 tests done this week. Our overall test positivity is 0.2% and our 7 day average daily test positivity is 0.2%.

-ENDS-

PS Health – Press Statement 09-05-2021
Statement by Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Health and Medical Services, Dr James Fong.
Bula Vinaka.

We have three new cases of COVID-19 to report. This follows another 1616 tests since yesterday.
These new cases are all linked to case number 136, the gentleman from Saru, Lautoka who presented with COVID-like symptoms to the Natabua Health centre and tested positive on Friday. One of the new cases is his wife, another is his daughter, and the third was a primary contact of his wife. All three have been in isolation since yesterday. The contact tracers are locating and quarantining their close contacts. All other known primary contacts relating to the three have tested negative.
I hope everyone today is watching this announcement from the safety of home. I know some of you have arrived back home for the first time in weeks after we allowed for one-way movement into containment areas for those who were stuck outside of the area in which they reside.
However, there are some people who ignored our restrictions and managed to move from contaminant areas on Viti Levu into non-containment areas. We are locating these people, but not quickly enough. Whoever they are, wherever they are, they must self-isolate, and they must do it now. If you are one of these people, or you know one of these people, call 158. We are not looking to dole out punishment. We are not going to move you back where you came from. But we are going to ask that you self-isolate at home for the next 14 days.
As I made clear from the beginning, this limited movement was only permitted on Viti Levu. Requests to move from Viti Levu to other parts of Fiji, and requests to move from other parts of Fiji to Viti Levu, have all been rejected. I don’t have a timeline as to when that restriction will lift. Everyone should plan to remain where they are for the foreseeable future.
Our FEMAT has set-up the 150-bed non-COVID Field Hospital, with clear patient care flow pathways that allow for patients to be securely moved to other hospitals and healthcare facilities if necessary. We’ll also manage staffing within the field hospital in response to patient demand.
The field hospital will enforce strict COVID screening and security to ensure it is a COVID-free facility, though it does have mobile response teams that can travel to treat patients who report COVID symptoms in the Lautoka area –– which is a big boost for our screening exercise in that area.
I want to update everyone on the progress of our screening exercises, not only in Lautoka but nationwide. In just over two weeks we have screened more than 317,000 Fijians through our stationary and mobile screening operations. The speed and scale of our screening works well. We go door-to-door, checking for symptoms and confirming that people have not had close contact with COVID-positive patients. But due to the nature of the virus –– and its 14-day incubation period –– screening once is not enough. A screening is just a snapshot, and a person who shows no symptoms today or tests negative today can show symptoms or test positive tomorrow. So communities that have been screened should expect to be screened again. That is necessary for us to give everyone the confidence that we are doing all we can to identify people who need to be isolated so they cannot spread the virus and where, if necessary, they can receive proper treatment.
We’re listening very closely to the story our screening and testing is telling us. It may extend further, and measures themselves could become more stringent. At the moment, no policy response is off the table –– including targeted lockdowns of certain areas and even a lockdown of the whole of Viti Levu. If this happens, it will be announced with a deliberate, well-informed, and detailed plan.
For now, our investigations around new cases in Suva, Nausori, and Lami have indicated those containment areas should be maintained for at least another week. Through the ministries of Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport and Economy, we are working with industry partners on COVID-safe risk assessments to explore how and when some industries may operate in carefully-managed ways within containment areas. The careFIJI contact tracing app will be paramount to these operations. Every Fijian must install it and keep it running, every business should encourage its employees and customers to do so. With every new case, our contact tracers are stretched further and the imperative of widespread adoption of careFIJI grows. We’ll be announcing early next week how our containment protocols will cater for more COVID-safe essential business operations.
I am happy to announce that we will be lifting the lockdown of Wainitarawau Settlement in Cunningham Suva and the Vuniwai Settlement in Taveuni from 4am tomorrow morning.
My Ministry is tasked with upholding the health and wellbeing of all Fijians, from COVID and from a range of other threats. If and when we do lockdown, that will occur alongside a whole-of-government and whole-of-society effort to mitigate the economically-devastating impact that lockdowns have in Fiji and around the world.
Today, we’re updating the public on our COVID-19 situation through a national announcement. Moving forward, we’ll be hosting press conferences several times a week to field questions from members of the media, particularly following major policy announcements.
I’d like to close with a special thank you to the mothers on my teams who have worked tirelessly through this weekend –– particularly those living and working in Lautoka Hospital. Their time away from family is a huge sacrifice –– and they’ve made it proudly to help keep the rest of us safe. There are other mothers who are quarantined or who are in isolation. Their time away from home is no less painful, and no less important for the nation’s safety. The rest of us should not take our time at home for granted. It is where many wish they could be. It is where we all ought to be as often as possible. So please, let’s respect the sacrifice of the hardworking mothers of Fiji, today and every day, by showing them solidarity through our adherence to the measures meant to protect us.
Thank you, and Happy Mother’s Day.