Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong has confirmed 10 new COVID-19 deaths from 30th July to 10th August.
All deaths are reported from the Central Division.
The first COVID-19 death is an 82 year old man from Nausori who died at home on 8th August. He was not vaccinated.
Doctor Fong says the second death is a 69 year old woman from Suva who died at home on 7th August. She was not vaccinated.
The third death is a 64 year old woman from Wailea who died at home on 8th August. She received the first dose of the vaccine in late May. She did not receive the 2nd dose of the vaccine.
The fourth COVID-19 death is a 64 year old man from Suva who died at home on 9th August. He was not vaccinated.
Doctor Fong says the fifth death is a 47 year old man from Kinoya who died at home on 9th August. He was not vaccinated.
The sixth COVID-19 death is a 44 year old woman from Lami. She presented to the CWM Hospital in severe respiratory distress. She died ten days after admission at the CWM Hospital on 30th July. She was not vaccinated.
The seventh death is a 72 year old man from Kalabu. He presented to the CWM Hospital in severe respiratory distress. He died one day after admission at the CWM Hospital on 9th August. He received the first dose of the vaccine in early June. He did not receive the second dose of the vaccine.
Doctor Fong says the eighth death is a 52 year old woman from Nabua. She presented to the CWM Hospital in severe respiratory distress. She died 12 days after admission on 9th August. She was not vaccinated.
The ninth death is a 63 year old man from Lami. He presented to the CWM Hospital in severe respiratory distress. He died 2 days after admission on 9th August. He was not vaccinated.
The tenth COVID-19 death is a 51 year old woman from Suva. She presented to the CWM Hospital in severe respiratory distress. She died 17 days after admission on 10th August. She was not vaccinated.
There have been 3 more deaths of COVID-19 positive patients. However, these deaths have been classified as non-COVID deaths by their doctors.
Doctors have determined that their deaths were caused by serious pre-existing medical conditions and not COVID-19.
With today’s newly reported deaths, there have now been 327 deaths due to COVID-19 in Fiji, with 325 of these deaths during the outbreak that started in April this year.
The 7 day rolling average of COVID-19 deaths per day is 7.
Fiji has also recorded 171 COVID-19 positive patients who died from the serious medical conditions that they had before they contracted COVID-19; these are not classified as COVID-19 deaths.
Of the 264 new cases of COVID, 131 cases are from the Western Division and 133 cases are from the Central Division.
A full breakdown of areas of interest will be published online tonight on the Ministry’s COVID-19 dashboard.
You can check out the link on our website, fijivillage.
There have been 257 new recoveries reported since the last update, which means that there are now 24,414 active cases.
18,948 active cases are in the Central Division and 5,446 active cases in the Western Division.
There have been 37,776 cases during the outbreak that started in April 2021.
Fiji has recorded a total of 37, 846 cases since the first case was reported in March 2020, with 12,934 recoveries.
Fiji's 7-day average of new COVID cases per day is 730 cases per day or 825 cases per million population per day.
Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong says they have noted a drop in cases reported per day recently however, the daily testing numbers have also been dropping around the same time, due to the change in testing policy in Suva-Nausori.
As announced on July 21st by the Permanent Secretary, only persons that have a higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 are being targeted for testing in Suva-Nausori.
He says this was done so that resources could be targeted to early detection, monitoring and care of persons with COVID-19 who are at higher risk of severe disease, to prevent more people succumbing to severe disease and death.
Doctor Fong says we are likely seeing the effect of this testing policy change now in Suva-Nausori with the drop in daily reported cases.
He says this does not mean that the outbreak is on a downward trend in the Suva-Nausori community.
As previously announced by Doctor Fong, the daily case numbers in Suva-Nausori are currently not being used as an indicator to monitor progress of the outbreak in Suva-Nausori.
The Ministry is closely monitoring other indicators such as test positivity, hospitalisations and deaths to track the progress of the outbreak in Suva-Nausori.
He says test positivity in Suva-Nausori was between 40-50% before the change in testing policy and has remained at this high level, which is above the national average.
Doctor Fong says this is one indicator of the continuing high level of community transmission in this area.
Testing levels in the Western Division remain consistently high with 3.8 to 4 tests per 1000 population per day at a 7 day average.
He says we are seeing increasing cases reported in the Western Division with evidence of widespread community transmission in that division.
There are currently 300 COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital.
62 patients are admitted to the Lautoka Hospital, 67 patients are admitted at the FEMAT Field Hospital, and 171 admitted at CWM Hospital, St Giles, and Makoi.
41 patients are considered to be in severe condition, and 9 are in critical condition.
Meanwhile 513, 535 adults in Fiji have received their first dose of the COVID vaccine and 180,722 have received their second doses.
This means that 87.5% of the target population have received at least one dose and 30.8% are now fully vaccinated nationwide.
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