Media Release                                                                   

COVID-19 Update

Thursday April 22nd 2021

As announced by the Permanent Secretary today, we have 6 new border quarantine cases and 2 new locally transmitted cases of COVID-19.

The 2 new locally transmitted cases are the 14 year old daughter and 7 month old son of case 78, who is the 40-year-old female from Wainitarawau in Cunningham Suva; a close contact of the hotel quarantine worker (case 74). The children’s first test results, from samples collected on Tuesday April 20^th, the day they were transferred to the isolation unit at Navua Hospital, were negative. These positive results are from repeat samples collected yesterday Wednesday April 21^st. The test results indicate that the children are likely in the early stages of infection, and they were unlikely to be infectious when out in the community. However, as a precaution, contact tracing is being conducted for these 2 new cases.

For the 6 border quarantine cases: 5 are travelling family members of 2 border quarantine cases announced on April 17^th. This family had travelled to Fiji from Manila, Philippines, arriving in Nadi on flight NZ952 from Auckland on April 8^th. They tested positive during routine testing while completing 14 days of quarantine in a government supervised border quarantine facility. The 6^th border quarantine case is a 38 year old male, who travelled from Malaysia to Fiji, also arriving in Nadi on NZ952 from Auckland on April 8^th.

With these latest cases there are now 19 active cases admitted into hospital isolation units. Five are older border quarantine cases announced before Sunday April 18th. Nine are recently announced border quarantine cases, and five are locally transmitted cases linked back to the RFMF soldier who was infected in a border quarantine facility.

There are also over 300 primary and secondary contacts of recent cases quarantined in border quarantine facilities in Nadi.

Fiji has had 86 cases in total, with 65 recoveries and 2 deaths, since our first case was reported on March 19^th 2020. 63 of these cases have been international travel associated cases detected in border quarantine. And 5 recently announced cases are our first cases of local transmission in over 1 year.

A total of 44,481 COVID-19 laboratory tests have been conducted, with a daily average of 394 tests per day over the last 7 days, and a weekly average of 1892 tests per week over the last 2 weeks. Daily testing has increased in line with the response to the recent local cases, with 994 tests conducted yesterday.

There are currently 1063 people who have recently arrived from overseas undergoing mandatory 14 day quarantine in government supervised border quarantine facilities in Nadi.

-ENDS-

Last Updated on 3 years by Publishing Team