Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong has confirmed 3 new COVID-19 deaths in the Central Division from August 11th to 13th and 467 new COVID cases. The first COVID-19 death is a 62 year old woman from Nakasi who died at home on 13th August. She was not vaccinated.
The second death is a 79 year old man from Tailevu who died at home on 11th August. He was also not vaccinated. The third COVID-19 death is an 80 year old woman from Suva who died at home on 14th August. She was not vaccinated. Doctor Fong says there have now been 371 deaths due to COVID-19 in Fiji, with 369 of these deaths during the outbreak that started in April this year.
The national 7 day rolling average of COVID-19 deaths per day is 7.
Fiji has also recorded 194 COVID 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 467 new cases, 258 cases are from the Western Division and 209 cases are from the Central Division.
There have been 231 new recoveries reported since the last update, which means that there are now 23,831 active cases.
17,226 active cases are in the Central Division, 6,604 active cases in the Western Division and 1 active case in the Northern Division.
There have been 40,167 cases during the outbreak that started in April 2021.
Fiji has recorded 40,237 cases in Fiji since the first case was reported in March 2020, with 15,841 recoveries.
Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong says whilst the COVID-19 positive person in Nabouwalu Wharf in Vanua Levu does not represent a community transmission case, the risk of community transmission is high.
He says this case was picked in a routine screening program and another 51 persons screened as part of this program had tested negative.
Doctor Fong says the positive person has been securely moved to the Malau isolation facility and household members have been quarantined.
The person’s 6 household members have tested negative for the virus and a further 8 workplace contacts are negative.
He says they are awaiting 3 more primary contact results.
Doctor Fong says the contact tracing and community surveillance efforts will continue.
He says an area of restricted movement will be announced to facilitate heightened Community Surveillance, conduct more contact tracing, escalate the COVID Safe community engagement program and plan and implement a program of targeted heightened vaccination coverage throughout the Nabouwalu Containment Zone.
533,705 adults in Fiji have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 211,496 have received their second doses.
This means that 91 percent of the target population have received at least one dose and 36.1 percent are now fully vaccinated nationwide.
Meanwhile Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong says there are currently 264 COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital.
73 patients are admitted to the Lautoka Hospital, 47 patients are admitted at the FEMAT Field Hospital, and 144 were admitted at CWM Hospital, St Giles, and Makoi.
54 patients are considered to be in severe condition and 12 are in critical condition.
A total of 307,048 samples have been tested since this outbreak started in April 2021, with 349,909 tested since testing began in March 2020.
The 7-day daily test average is 1476 tests per day or 1.7 tests per 1,000 population.
The national 7-day average daily test positivity is 32.9 percent.
Furthermore, the 7-day average of new cases per day is 465 cases per day or 526 cases per million population per day.
The daily testing numbers have been dropping due to the change in testing policy in Suva-Nausori.
Doctor Fong says this does not mean that the outbreak is on a downward trend in the Suva-Nausori community.
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 they are seeing increasing cases reported in the Western Division with evidence of widespread community transmission in the division.
Doctor Fong says they are also noting an increasing trend of deaths in the Western Division.
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