Stay alert: Safety measures vital

Alarms bells should be ringing as the increase in daily cases points to unknown infected and highly contagious individuals among the public.

During his nationwide address last night, Permanent Secretary for Health and Medical Services Dr James Fong said: “Those infected people could already be in your community, on the bus you ride, in the supermarket you shop at, or at your place of work–– that is why every Fijian must take every possible measure to limit their chance of being infected or infecting others,” he said.

“Wear a mask, maintain physical distance, install careFIJI app and keep Bluetooth switched on, cough in your elbow or in a tissue that you immediately discard, avoid physical contact with anyone else if you can help it, and if you feel unwell, visit a screening clinic or call 158.

“The earlier you can be diagnosed the safer you are, the safer your loved ones are, and the safer we all are.”

Dr Fong also highlighted that Fiji was entering a stage of outbreak where it was no longer useful to state the details of every new confirmed case.

“We will always inform the public on the number of active cases in the country and provide necessary details to help with contact tracing,” he said

“But if we start seeing larger numbers of cases in different parts of Viti Levu, our priority will be on giving prompt and accurate information on the broader outlines of the situation at that time, along with any vital information people may need to stay safe.”

Meanwhile, the ministry will be announcing the next deployment schedule of vaccines today.

To date, more than 93,000 people have received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccines, which is ahead of schedule.