The Fiji Labour Party is calling for a thorough investigation into how the COVID-19 protocol was breached at a quarantine centre in Nadi which has forced a virtual lockdown of the greater Nadi and Lautoka areas while Health Minister Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete says the matter is being thoroughly investigated by their team on the ground.
Party Leader Mahendra Chaudhry says thousands of families are being inconvenienced and their lives have been disrupted just because of the lapse or a lack of responsibility on the part of one person.
Chaudhry says the social and economic impact of this is enormous with schools closed, major sporting events and religious gatherings banned and USP’s graduation ceremony put on hold.
The Party Leader adds it is believed that the security personnel may have contracted the virus from a couple already in quarantine who had tested positive.
He says this raises greater questions about whether strict discipline is being enforced in quarantine centres holding positive cases.
Chaudhry says just one instance of irresponsibility has put the whole nation on alert because the extent of contamination is still not known.
He says so far the concentration has been on contact tracing which is fine but they insist that it is equally important that the matter of how the soldier got contaminated and passed it on to others is thoroughly examined to prevent this from happening again.
Health Minister Dr Ifereimi Waqainabete says we have to remember that these are the people that have been working hard to keep us COVID-19 contained for over a year.
He says investigations are ongoing and they are looking at ways to improve their processes because they do not want these things to happen again.
Dr Waqainabete adds medical experts are doing an audit of the things that happened.
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