28 days of a 24-hour curfew for all of Viti Levu would put all of us face to face with economic disaster and miserable isolation - PM

Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says at this stage, it should be clear that we are not going to get through this pandemic by shutting every Fijian in their homes and shuttering the windows of every business in the country.

In a national address last night, Bainimarama says 28 days of a 24 hour curfew for all of Viti Levu would put all of us face to face with economic disaster and miserable isolation.

He says if they took that route, after they spent nearly 700 hours shut in their homes, Fiji would look vastly and cruelly different when we all re-emerge.

Bainimarama adds people’s jobs may never return and Fiji will suffer structural unemployment through the permanent loss of industries and he cannot allow that to happen.

He says our current outbreak is localized, it is not all over Fiji, it is on Viti Levu and centred in the Central Division.

Bainimarama says the cases are also mostly occurring in known clusters, most of which are within lockdown areas adding they have managed to keep the cases at much lower levels than they could have been, and we certainly have not had the kind of rampant spread that many countries experienced a year or more ago.

He also says the growing numbers of cases are not good news, by any means, but when we look into those numbers, we can understand that as long as we can find and contain the new cases, we can contain or slow the spread by quarantining people we suspect may be positive and isolating those who have tested positive already.

The Prime Minister says it is easy to call for drastic measures like 28 days of straight lockdown for the whole of Viti Levu if you are still in a high-paying job or have a healthy savings account, it is easy to call for a lockdown if you do not depend on day-to-day wages or struggle to pay bills for a business that is closed, it is easy to call for a lockdown if you don’t work at a factory that might permanently leave Fiji if they must shut down completely for 28 days; the garment factories and call centres, that cannot serve overseas clients will lose those contracts –– and the jobs they support – forever.

Bainimarama says because of vaccines and because they now know more about COVID, the world’s fight against this virus has changed, and so must their strategy.

He adds we will get through this current ordeal by an intelligent and targeted application of measures to contain the spread until we get enough of us vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.

The Prime Minister says they are looking at the long-term picture, and are looking at the experience of other countries, and they believe that if we follow some sensible guidelines designed to keep us from gathering indiscriminately in large groups, we can manage this virus while protecting our health, protecting Fijian jobs and businesses and safeguarding the long-term prospects of our young nation.