Even a low-risk breach of confinement zones become a big problem for health officials.

Permanent Secretary for Health, Dr James Fong, says if people breach the screening zones, a large number of people have to be sent in to investigate.

He adds this is unnecessary diversion of resources from critical areas.

“Some of you might find this funny but I have highlighted this because it is a real problem for us. You know when somebody breaches some of the screening zones that we have, we have to send a huge number of people to investigate the breach. Sometimes the breach is low-risk and we could have used them somewhere else.”

A man from Moturiki is in Police custody and under quarantine for breaching the lockdown, and swimming across to Ovalau.

He says the nature of this pandemic can induce anxiety in a lot of people.

The Permanent Secretary says it is a scary time, but Fijians should not let that fear drive them towards bad decision-making.