A new COVID-19 case has been confirmed as contact tracing continues for the potential super spreader event which is a funeral at Peceliema Church in Tavakubu Lautoka on Friday 16th April and Saturday 17th April.
In a press conference, Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong confirms the second positive community case is the daughter of the 53-year-old hotel worker.
Doctor Fong says the soldier who tested positive over the weekend remains in border quarantine facility and he never entered public spaces.
He says their contact tracing has been limited to his 69 primary contacts within the facility as well as their 267 secondary contacts. These contacts are all in quarantine.
The 53-year-old maid is the only positive case from the 69 primary contacts.
Doctor Fong also says the woman, her daughter with the rest of her family have been in quarantine since Sunday morning.
He says due to her extensive exposure with the public, this hotel staff and now her daughter, have been the central focus of their contact tracing.
Doctor Fong says together these two patients represent the highest risk cases Fiji has ever contended with.
At about 9pm Friday, 16th April the mother and 11 other family members travelled from Nadi to the funeral in Tavakubu using a hired mini bus. The mini bus is identified and the driver is in quarantine.
Doctor Fong says outside this family, there were no other passengers.
He says the mother and eight of her family members returned to Nadi later at 12.30am Saturday. They went again in a hired mini bus. It drove from Tavakubu to Nadi. There were no other outside passengers.
On Saturday, the woman and 7 other family members travelled to Tavakubu at 9am by hired mini bus without any other passengers. They are also trying to contact the driver of the mini bus.
After the funeral on Saturday, the hotel worker and another family member travelled in a grey taxi from Tavakubu to the Lautoka Mini Bus Stand, then took a public mini bus from Lautoka to Nadi at around 5pm. The Health Ministry has not found the taxi or the mini bus.
Doctor Fong says they need to find the driver of the grey taxi and the driver and passengers of the mini bus.
The other family members who had travelled with the hotel worker to Lautoka all returned to Nadi by other means.
All these family members based in the west have been entered into quarantine and have tested negative for the virus.
As the Health Ministry presses ahead with contact tracing, they are urging anyone with details about the grey taxi and the mini bus to come forward with information.
If you travelled by mini bus between Lautoka Mini Bus Stand to Nadi after 5pm Saturday 17th April, please call 158.
If you are the driver of a grey taxi or have information about the driver, please call 158.
Now that the ministry knows that both the mother and the daughter are COVID positive, the risk that there was transmission of the virus to the mother’s fellow passengers from the Tavakubu funeral to Nadi on Saturday is high.
The funeral is now treated as a potential super spreader event.
Throughout this period the woman and her daughter also travelled with three family members who were visiting from Naicabecabe Village in Moturiki. These three also stayed with the mother and daughter at their home in Nadi.
The three individuals have been identified, they have been swabbed and are in home quarantine in Naicabecabe.
The entire village of Naicabecabe is now a containment area.
Dr Fong says they know that there were more than 500 people present in the funeral in Tavakubu. The mother was there for a few hours which was more than enough time to transmit the virus to others.
The Health Ministry has directed all those present at the funeral to stay at home for the next two weeks while they await screening by the ministry.
If you attended the funeral at Peceliema Church in Tavakubu on Friday 16th April or Saturday 17th April, please call 158.
Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong says they are certain there are more COVID-19 cases out there however they have yet to confirm it via tests.
Doctor Fong says they are mobilising a massive house-to-house screening effort in the Nadi and Lautoka Containment Area to determine people’s travel history, so they know where they have been and screen for COVID-like symptoms.
He says they have the capacity to run 600 COVID tests per day.
Doctor Fong says that is how many tests they plan to run every day for the next two weeks.
For this screening effort to be done well, they need to ensure that people in the Nadi and Lautoka Containment Area are at home as much as possible.
From today, the Health Ministry is asking that movement within the Nadi and Lautoka Containment Area be restricted for emergencies and essential purposes only.
If you do not have an essential reason to travel, don’t.
Doctor Fong says they need everyone at home as often as possible.
He says if you are living within the containment area, you should treat everyone as COVID positive until it is proven otherwise.
If you need to go outside, wear a mask.
Keep your distance from others, and head straight home once you have finished shopping for food, medicine or getting money.
Doctor Fong says for those businesses which are open, he cannot stress enough how important it is that you enforce physical distancing within your businesses and require that customers have the careFIJI app turned on while they are on the premises.
He says they have been informed that some supermarkets are not enforcing these measures.
The Permanent Secretary says shops will be shut down if these reports are found to be true.
Doctor Fong stresses that he also wants to be clear with everyone – the problem here is the virus, not any one person.
He says we need to shake the harmful stigma around people who are living with COVID-19.
If you feel you have symptoms, if you know someone experiencing symptoms and if you suspect you have had contact with either of our two confirmed patients, call 158.
Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong says non-work gatherings should not be happening of any size, anywhere in Fiji.
Doctor Fong says he knows this is a bitter pill to swallow for those who had planned religious celebrations but this is a life or death matter.
He says those services, no matter how small, could put lives at risk.
Doctor Fong says their discipline and sacrifice today will keep COVID-stricken patients out of ICUs and prevent loss of life.
He asks people for now, please keep your celebrations within your homes and restricted to members of your households.
Doctor Fong says find comfort in family, and have faith that our strict adherence to these health measures will restore our precious freedom to gather for religious services once Fiji is safe again.
Meanwhile Doctor Fong says he has been extremely disappointed by media coverage that has been misleading.
He highlighted in particular, The Fiji Times published a troubling headline on their Facebook page saying “Vaccines do not protect you from getting the virus”.
Doctor Fong says the headline was wrong.
He says it is contradicted by science, and many people will be swayed by it without ever reading the article.
Doctor Fong says all of us who provide information to the public must take extreme care in what we say and how we say it to avoid giving information that is misleading, unproven, premature or, at worst, false.
He says their reckless words may have deadly consequences.
Doctor Fong states that vaccines absolutely do protect you from getting the virus, particularly after both doses of the vaccine are administered.
He says so far, they have only administered the first of two doses in Fiji, that means they only offered partial protection.
Doctor Fong says the soldier and the maid both received one dose of the vaccine, but neither were fully immunised.
He says no vaccine stops transmission 100% of the time but when a person is fully immunised, the likelihood of contracting the virus plummets, as does the severity of the symptoms.
Doctor Fong says as countries vaccinate more people, infections and deaths decline. That is happening in Israel, the US, the UK, Australia and elsewhere.
He also shares the Prime Minister’s concerns that our experience in containing the virus may have made us complacent, life-risking habits have taken hold in too many ways over the past several months.
People are sharing takis, bilos and cigarettes, and forgoing handwashing and strict physical distancing.
Doctor Fong says we all need to recommit ourselves to the practices that have protected us until we reach herd immunity through mass vaccination.
There are two more confirmed COVID-19 border quarantine cases in Fiji.
The Head of Health Protection at the Ministry of Health, Doctor Alisha Sahukhan says these cases are two soldiers aged 25 and 32 who recently returned from duties overseas.
Doctor Sahukhan says these are the cases that they are used to, where people come from overseas and go to the isolation ward at Lautoka Hospital in accordance with their normal protocol for positive cases.
She says with this latest border cases, there are now 10 active cases admitted at the Lautoka Isolation Unit.
Doctor Sahukhan says the first five cases are the older border quarantine cases that were announced up until the end of last week and the recent five are the ones that have just been announced.
She says this means that Fiji has had 77 cases in total since our first case on March 19th 2020.
Doctor Sahukhan says 55 of these cases have been international travel associated detected in border quarantine.
She says the two recent cases who is the quarantine hotel worker and the soldier are our first case of local transmission in over one year.
Sahukhan says 43,241 COVID-19 tests have been conducted with a daily average of 277 test per day over the last 7 days and a weekly average of 18,092 tests a week, over the last two weeks.
She says there are currently 800 people who have recently arrived from overseas and are undergoing mandatory 14-day quarantine in the border quarantine facilities in Nadi.
The Permanent Secretary for Health Dr James Fong says sometimes their presence in public spaces is just to investigate and it does not mean something will happen in the area.
There are reports circulating that a woman from a village in Nausori had attended the funeral in Tavakubu and there is a potential threat of the area being placed under lockdown.
Dr Fong says every time they try to investigate a suspected step, people start thinking that there is something happening.
He is urging the people not to be afraid when they see health staff in their area.
Dr Fong says they understand public anxiety but they will inform the people if there is something.
Health Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Dr. James Fong says the quarantine is an operation run by human beings and no quarantine process in the whole world has been 100 percent full proof.
Dr. Fong says every single quarantine system in the world has been breached.
He says for them, the breach at the quarantine facility in Nadi was an incident waiting to happen.
Dr. Fong adds they got a lot of community support on the first night of operations when they were looking for 310 people that are now in quarantine.
He says Rosie Holidays gave them vehicles and told them to use it while Pacific Destinations Limited told them they will go anywhere to help the Ministry to reach these people.
Dr. Fong says there were other people that came forward with the help and this assistance allowed them to secure 310 people in 12 hours which is a huge achievement.
He says their biggest priority at the moment is getting the containment plan working and the exercise of going through the whole of Lautoka and Nadi is a huge logistical exercise.
He also reveals there will be 19 screening locations in the Central Division by tomorrow and they are also setting up locations in the Northern Division.
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