Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama says the government is allowing for limited movement and COVID-safe activity within the Containment Area in Nadi and Lautoka area from this afternoon and the 24 hour curfew has been lifted.
Bainimarama says the curfew hours will revert to 11pm to 4am for the Nadi and Lautoka area.
He says supermarkets and shops selling food can open from today so that people can buy food.
Banks, pharmacies, FNPF, other businesses such as factories and shops, can open as well.
However, Bainimarama says it is vital that vendors and businesses ensure strict physical distancing before opening their doors.
The Prime Minister has told businesses to make sure customers in queues are spaced out by two metres and manage crowding.
He says customer-facing businesses should limit customer capacity to 50 percent.
Bainimarama stresses that businesses that do not manage these risks with COVID-safe plans will be shut down.
Within the Nadi and Lautoka Containment Area, higher-risk businesses, such as gyms, movie theatres, video gaming shops, cyber cafes, taverns, bars, billiard shops and amusement arcades cannot open for at least the next 14 days.
The Prime Minister says restaurants may not open for in-person dining, but may offer delivery and takeaway services.
He says they are also making arrangements to ensure fresh produce, basic food items, manufactured items, and other items can be sent in and out of the containment area.
Police have been instructed to be quick about these approvals so that these goods can flow as freely as possible.
Bainimarama says they expect these measures to be maintained for at least the next 14 days.
The new measures do not end at the borders of the containment area.
The Prime Minister says nationwide, schools, including private schools, will be closed from tomorrow through at least the end of the term.
School boarders will return to where they reside. If they are in the containment area and need to return home outside of the area, they will be allowed to leave in a highly controlled manner. For the rest of Fiji, the Prime Minister says over the next 14 days, major events, including the Coca-Cola Games, university graduations and rugby matches, will have to be cancelled.
For the next 14 days no religious services are to be held and non-work gatherings should not happen at all.
Bainimarama says businesses can remain open with COVID safe plans.
All businesses must require customers display the careFIJI app or they must register their details for contact tracing purposes.
Civil servants living outside of the containment area who work within the area should report to the nearest office outside of the Nadi and Lautoka Containment Area. For those outside of Nadi and Lautoka, you have 24 hours to enter the containment area if you need to.
But you will not be allowed to leave for at least the next 14 days.
Bainimarama says those living outside of the containment area who are unable to attend work in the containment area will be allowed to access $220 a fortnight from their FNPF. If funds are insufficient, the government will top up their accounts.
The Prime Minister says they will also approve individuals to travel through the containment area for flights out of Nadi.
Aside from some cancellations today, repatriation flights will continue at Nadi International Airport.
Bainimarama says to ensure we have adequate space in quarantine facilities, those currently in their quarantine periods will be securely ferried out of the containment area to where they reside once they finish their 14 days of quarantine and clear a negative COVID test result.
Monday 19/09/2020
The Permanent Secretary for Health Dr James Fong says right now their biggest area of interest is Tavakubu, Lautoka where the 53-year-old woman who tested positive for COVID-19 attended a funeral on Friday and Saturday.
Dr Fong says the information they are getting from the woman indicates that apart from three individuals who had travelled to Moturiki, Lomaiviti all other people at the funeral were from a church circuit within Lautoka.
He further says they have traced the 3 people who went to Moturiki.
Dr Fong adds their team in the West has shown a boundary that they maintained and they will be going through that group as part of the screening process.
He says they will have to set up a number of mobile and fixed screening clinics throughout Nadi and Lautoka.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says only 1 of the 69 first-generation contacts of the soldier that tested positive for COVID-19, has tested positive for the disease.
Bainimarama says 68 have tested negative.
He says the positive patient is the 53-year-old woman working as a maid in the quarantine facility.
Bainimarama says their investigation has revealed she had an interaction with the soldier when he showed up early to his room as it was being cleaned. He says protocol dictates that overlap should not have happened, that is why the woman was not tested before re-entering the public.
The Prime Minister says they will have to wait and see what further investigations reveal.
He says what is clear today is that this breach in the protocol cannot be repeated.
In the meantime, they are confident that their system of border quarantine can function to the high degree it has over the past year.
The woman is a daytime worker and she resides in Nadi.
It has been revealed that she had symptoms on Thursday, and authorities were not notified.
The Prime Minister says that means she was contagious when she was at work on Thursday and later on Friday and Saturday when she travelled through the Lautoka and Nadi areas.
Bainimarama says perhaps most worryingly, she attended a funeral in Tavakubu Lautoka on Friday and Saturday, travelling alongside other passengers by minibus.
The Prime Minister says the woman’s movement using public transport, and her attendance in close proximity alongside many other Fijians at the two-day funeral makes further transmission in the community highly likely.
To limit the risk of mass community transmission, and to better screen the local population, Bainimarama said they had established a Nadi and Lautoka Containment Area and brought new stringent health protection measures into effect.
The Nadi and Lautoka Containment Area has been established from Qeleloa bearing towards Sigatoka, to Nacilau, Vakabuli, and the Waiwai Crossing bearing towards Ba.
Ministry of Health and Medical Services personnel and disciplined forces have rapidly established screening points at these entry points.
Prime Minister, Voreqe Bainimarama advises Fijians in the containment area in Nadi and Lautoka to wear masks as it’s the one thing that may be most important in stopping the spread of COVID-19.
Bainimarama says masks are absolutely proven to protect yourself and others from contracting COVID, so we need each of you to urgently pick up this habit.
He says he knows that, for the past year, we have had the luxury of not needing to put on masks every day, like billions of others have around the world.
But he says today, that needs to change. Bainimarama also says he can’t stress this enough, that everyone needs to download the careFIJI app on their phones if you can.
He says situations like the current COVID case are exactly why they created the careFIJI app, and it’s use now is more critical than ever before.
The Prime Minister says social distancing has been ignored, masks have gathered dust tucked away in drawers, and businesses went back to operating as usual.
He says the healthy habits that we learned 12 months ago were all but forgotten.
But over the course of the past year, the science has become even more clear that mask-wearing and physical distancing is absolutely essential to stop the virus from spreading.
Bainimarama says now, more than ever, we need every woman, man, and child, and every business of every size, to go back to following that proven rule book.
He says that is why they are enforcing the same, strict containment measures that have proven successful in the past, and it’s why their contact tracing team is working overtime to identify and isolate every known contact of this latest case.
The Prime Minister says we need every Fijian to do their part to contain this virus, and each and every one of you can help them again defeat this disease.
They are also re-activating the network of screening clinics across the country to keep those with COVID-like symptoms away from vulnerable people who visit health centres and into separate, dedicated spaces specially designed to effectively identify possible COVID-19 cases.
If you have a fever, or any symptoms, like a dry cough or a loss of taste, visit one of these clinics immediately.
As of today, 24,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines will be arriving through the COVAX facility.
Permanent Secretary for Health, Dr James Fong will be announcing the details of their vaccine deployment soon.
Please call 158 if you are feeling unwell.
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