ANOTHER COVID DEATH, 166 CASES

Fiji has recorded another COVID-19 death. He is a 77-year-old man who was bedridden at home for several months.

Permanent Secretary for Health Dr James Fong said he was diagnosed as Covid 19 positive by the CWM screening team.

“While he had pre-existing medical conditions, based on available clinical data the consensus is that this represents a COVID Death,” Dr Fong said.

“This brings our total COVID-19 deaths to date in Fiji to 6. The family has been counselled and further containment measures have been activated.”

Dr Fong said they have recorded 166 new cases in the 24-hour period ending at 8am yesterday.

“While most of the new cases are linked to existing clusters, going forward, we will now report on areas of interest since the number of positive cases has grown. Community transmission is broad throughout the Central Division,” he said.

“In this respect we will post on various Government social media platforms, heat maps to delineate case distribution within the Central and Western divisions. Everyone should be practicing COVIDsafe measures whenever you leave your home, irrespective of where you live and where you are going.

“As expected, we are seeing a few more cases arising in the Lami area. The current priority is, therefore, to prevent the export of cases into the other non-containment zones.

“As such any request to move outside of the Central Division to other areas of Viti Levu and from Viti Levu to Vanua Levu and the Maritime zone needs to be strictly regulated. Pre-departure swab tests and Quarantine capability are being expanded and strengthened to reduce the risk of spread within and beyond Viti Levu.”

Screening update

■ 56 stationery screening clinics remain operational throughout the country.

■ 3901 individuals were screened and 561 swabbed at the clinics in the last 24 hours.

■ The screening clinics have now screened 177,003 individuals and swabbed 22,622 individuals since commencement.

Testing Update

The Ministry of Health will continue to do tests at high levels and will update testing numbers in their next report.

Vaccination Update

The vaccination team has resumed today. On Saturday night, Fiji received 50,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine as part of the Australian Government Support.