There is no more presence of COVID-19 however we cannot afford second or third wave – Waqainabete

Minister for Health Dr. Ifereimi Waqainabete says their testing is telling them there is no more presence of COVID-19 in our communities however they cannot afford a second or third wave of the disease.

While delivering his ministerial statement, Waqainabete says their testing for COVID-19 is beyond the World Health Organisation criteria as they are testing aggressively and widely.

He says all patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit with symptoms of severe acute respiratory illness have also been tested for COVID-19.

Waqainabete says in addition to this, they have identified 10 health facilities around the country to be sentinel testing sites for patients with respiratory symptoms for COVID-19, adding further surveillance capability.

He says as of yesterday, 2,431 tests have been conducted for COVID-19.

They are doing 121.5 tests per confirmed case and by this measure Waqainabete says Fiji compares favourably with the rest of the world where Australia does 133 tests per confirmed case and South Korea does 69.1 tests per confirmed case for COVID-19.

He says 40 fever clinics have so far seen 16,757 people as of yesterday while 142 people that were seen at these fever clinics were then required to have testing for COVID-19 and all results have been negative.

The mobile fever clinics where house to house visits were conducted saw 809,704 people getting screened.

Waqainabete says today marks 36 days since our last confirmed case of COVID-19 was reported.

While responding to Waqainabete’s statement, NFP’s President, Pio Tikoduadua says Fiji Airways staff and many thousands of victims of COVID-19 deserve government’s attention and assistance and they cannot use the COVID-19 excuse to compromise the health and well being of Fijians because of the inability of government.