COVID-19: Health Ministry not rolling back restriction measures just yet

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Police officers at the Delainavesi checkpoint. Picture: FT FILE

Fiji’s Ministry of Health and Medical Services is not considering relaxing restriction measures for any of the six containment zones throughout the country just yet until it is clear of the risks there are.

At present, there are six large containment areas – Suva, Nausori, Lami, Rakiraki, and Nadi and Lautoka.

Ministry of Health permanent secretary Dr James Fong said the borders of each zones were highly restricted and movement within those 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,” Dr Fong said.

“That will require more tests, more screening, and – quite simply – more time,” he said.

Dr Fong said the virus may be laying in wait within any of those containment areas, and “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.”

Quick facts as at Monday, May 3, 2021:

  • Two new cases to report today
  • With these latest cases, Fiji now has 51 active cases in isolation
  • 16 border quarantine cases
  • 31 locally transmitted cases
  • 4 under investigation to determine source of transmission
  • Fiji now has 121 cases in total
  • 68 recoveries and 2 deaths since the first case was announced on March 19, 2020
  • A total of 54,988 tests conducted since testing began in 2020
  • 970 average daily tests conducted in the last 7 days
  • 5995 weekly average tests over the last 2 weeks
  • Record 6821 tests conducted in the last week
  • 1736 tests conducted yesterday alone (Sunday, May 2, 2021)

(Source: Dr Alisha Sahu-Khan, COVID-19 daily press briefing, May 3)

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