There’s a possibility the province of Ra will go into lockdown.

Permanent Secretary for Health Dr James Fong says they may take the necessary step in Ra after the containment area was established on Friday which limits movement in the province but does allow for essential businesses to remain open.

However, Dr Fong says they have not locked Ra down at the moment but their investigation into the two unconnected clusters in the province may require more stringent measures in the near future.

“Again this is another part where I have to say this again and again before we did this lockdown I said that we might get there in the hope that people will prepare unfortunately when we went into lockdown a huge number of people said they were not prepared, we cannot give you a specific time when we gonna call the lockdown, the lockdown has to happen when it needs to happen, but we can only say it might happen, I’m telling Rakiraki now, it might happen.”

Dr Fong is appealing to rural communities to abide by the protocols and he says sometimes they think their remoteness can protect them.

He says the remoteness provides no protection when people are circulating through the country.

The PS for Health also acknowledged a number of communities who have taken the step of adopting lockdown measures of their own.

According to Dr Fong this is a prudent and responsible action under the current circumstances and he encourages all of our rural and maritime communities to restrict travel if they can.