There are five new cases of COVID-19 as of this yesterday afternoon, including one person who is from a catering company and four from Muanikoso, Nasinu.
Muanikoso in Nasinu continues to be a hotspot with four cases from two separate households.
They were all located within the Muanikoso Containment Zone, and were picked up as part of the mass screening currently ongoing in that area over the weekend.
The Muanikoso Containment Zone
The fifth case is related to the Samabula cluster.
The person is an employee of a catering group that was providing food after a funeral gathering held at the Samabula cluster household.
There are now 97 active cases in isolation with the total number of cases recorded in Fiji since our first case in March 2020 now at 235.
Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong, says their recent experience tells them that other than within households, this virus has been spreading most commonly within workplaces and during social gatherings.
He says this is particularly workplaces with large numbers of staff, like supermarkets, are at high risk for spread of the infection.
“We are urging all workplaces, including supermarkets and other commercial establishments to review your procedures and make sure you are complying with the protocols we have established to eliminate spread. Commercial establishments and operators of public transport vehicles must enforce limits on capacity, enforce masking requirements, be diligent about cleaning and disinfecting surfaces, ensure staff do not work if they are sick, and make sure all employees comply and also enforce these procedures. And everyone must download the careFiji app. The Ministry of Commerce, Trade, Tourism and Transport will work with commercial business owners–particularly supermarkets–and the transport industry to make sure that everyone understands the practices they must follow.”
Fijians getting their second jab at the Nadi International Airport
Doctor Fong says they have also seen evidence that people have traveled on public transport or done shopping despite experiencing symptoms.
“We all must take individual responsibility for stopping the spread of this virus. Everyone should recognize the symptoms by now. The typical symptoms of COVID-19 include fatigue, fever, sore throat, cough, shortness of breath, body aches, or a sudden loss of taste or smell.”
The closeness of settlements where people live in close proximity to each other is a major concern and the health ministry wants to keep them free of infection, and this mean it will now increase our swabbing within a settlement where there are known cases.
Vaccination at Cunningham Stage 1
There is some good news as results from 7,000 backlogged swab samples sent to Australia for testing have been received.
“All were negative except for one inconclusive sample from Lautoka that will be retested. The high number of negative results is not unexpected as the majority of samples that were backlogged, and then shipped to Australia in this batch of 7,000, were from outside the containment areas, including a large number of samples from the Northern Division. We are awaiting results from another 4,000 swab samples undergoing testing in Australia. The majority of samples in this second batch are from the containment areas of Suva, Nasinu, Nausori, Nadi and Lautoka.”
Fiji has now conducted 576,050 screenings and 24,855 swabbing through community mobile screening program, in addition to the health facility, fixed screening clinics and the contact tracing screenings conducted for positive cases.
[Source: Fijian Government]
Fijians getting their second jab at the Nadi International Airport
Vaccination at Cunningham Stage 1
