Fiji has a daily record of new COVID-19 cases as Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong has announced 166 cases in the 24 hour period ending at 8am yesterday.
Doctor Fong also confirms that there is a COVID-19 related death as well.
He says sadly, a 77-year-old man who was bedridden at home for several months has passed away.
The man was diagnosed as COVID-19 positive by the CWM screening team.
Doctor Fong says while he had pre-existing medical conditions, based on available clinical data the consensus is that this represents a COVID-19 death.
This brings the total COVID-19 deaths to date in Fiji to 7.
The family has been counselled and further containment measures have been activated.
Doctor Fong also says as expected they are seeing a few more cases arising in the Lami area.
He says the current priority is therefore to prevent the export of cases into the other non-containiment zones.
As such any request to move outside of the Central Division to other areas of Viti Levu and from Viti Levu to Vanua Levu and the Maritime Zone needs to be strictly regulated.
Doctor Fong says pre-departure swab tests and quarantine capability are being expanded and strengthened to reduce the risk of spread within and beyond Viti Levu.
He says while a majority of the new cases are linked to existing clusters, going forward, they will now report on areas of interest since the number of positive cases have grown.
He says community transmission is broad throughout the Central Division.
Doctor Fong says they will post on various Government social media platforms, heat maps to delineate case distribution within the Central and Western divisions.
He says everyone should be practice Covid safe measures whenever you leave your home, irrespective of where you live and where you are going.
The 56 stationery screening clinics remain operational throughout the country.
A total of 3901 individuals were screened and 561 swabbed at the clinics in the last 24 hours.
The screening clinics have now screened 177,003 individuals and swabbed 22,622 individuals since commencement.
50,000 more doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine as part of support from the Australian government has been delivered to Fiji.
The Health Ministry says with the arrival of more vaccines, they will not only ramp up their rollout on Viti Levu but also recommence in the Northern and Eastern Divisions.
Vaccination teams will be out again tomorrow in parts of the country.
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