Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama says come next week, if the government does not see our fever testing numbers go dramatically up, and they don’t see the numbers of the curfew and quarantine violations go dramatically down, they will initiate a nationwide 24-hour curfew.
Bainimarama stresses stay at home, save lives.
The Prime Minister says two rugby players returning from overseas broke compulsory quarantine after coming back to Fiji. He says like every other person disembarking from international flights, they were required to self-quarantine for 14 days.
Bainimarama adds the two rugby players violated the directives, and put their loved ones and all of Fiji at risk.
He says one of them was coming in from Singapore and had a high-risk of exposure to the virus while overseas.
The Prime Minister says after reports he was breaking quarantine, he was actually brought into the hospital in Sigatoka and then he bolted and disappeared, forcing police officers to track him down.
Bainimarama says unlucky for him, he couldn’t step his way past our Fiji Police Force.
The Prime Minister says the player has been arrested, and he is now securely in isolation at Nadi Hospital.
He says they also received another report of a mother who took her family on a fibreglass boat and shipped herself to Wakaya Island.
Police are investigating this alleged breach as well.
Fiji now has 12 confirmed cases of COVID-19 but the Health Ministry is awaiting further test results of the daughter-in-law of the Soasoa man in Labasa who has tested positive.
She is the 12th case and is the only patient who is yet to be tested twice for COVID-19.
The test results for her second test is expected later today.
Key Points from the announcement:
• PM has again stressed to people to stay home and safe lives.
• The father who is at Labasa Isolation Ward has tested positive for COVID-19.
• He is the father of the barber who tested positive of COVID-19 earlier this week.
• All contact tracing teams are on the ground.
• Three families at Labasa Isolation Ward.
• The 11-year-old daughter of the couple at Nabua has also tested positive of COVID-19.
• Another case in Lautoka connected to a woman who tested positive after the Zumba class with the first patient.
• A new case in Nadi has been confirmed. She was in self-quarantine after returning from NZ.
• Fiji now has 5 new cases of COVID-19 overnight.
• The virus can spread at an exponential rate and the people have to take all necessary precautions according to Prime Minister Bainimarama.
• The Labasa man who returned from India had gone around Suva including a garage in Suva, he also caught a Patterson Shipping boat on March 27th from Suva to Labasa and then he put 3 members in his household in Labasa.
• 240 square kilometres of Soasoa in Labasa will be locked down after the first confirmed case in the North.
• The Prime Minister says anyone can be a carrier.
• Bainimarama has called on people to adhere to the curfew restrictions.
• 2 rugby players broke compulsory self-quarantine measures.
• 1 of them was coming from Singapore and was a high risk.
• 1 rugby player was taken to hospital but he bolted out of the hospital but Police officers have caught him and he is at the Nadi Hospital Isolation Ward.
• Bainimarama also confirms a woman and her children who were going in a fibreglass boat to Wakaya are also under investigation.
• Over 30,000 people have been screened at fever clinics.
• PM has stressed that he does not care who the people are who are breaching the rules, don't care how famous you are or how rich you are - do the right thing and follow the rules.
• 24 hours curfew will be imposed on people if people do not follow the rules.
• Military and Police will be brought in to lockdown Fiji next week if people do not follow the rules.
• PM has told children and the elderly not to leave the house.
• Bainimarama stresses that everyone has to follow the rules and if they don't then stringent action will be taken.
• Case 8 - a 39-year-old woman of Natokawaqa, Lautoka.
• Case 9 - a 54-year-old man from Soasoa Labasa who had returned from India.
• Case 10 - a 20-year-old woman from Nadi who had returned from NZ.
• Case 11 - the daughter of the couple from Nabua settlement. She developed symptoms while in isolation. She remains isolated in Navua.
• 2 other cases of interest - a 25-year-old woman and her son. They are related to the 54-year-old Soasoa man who had returned from India.
New confirmed cases
Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama confirms the father of the barber who tested positive on Thursday has been confirmed to have COVID-19.
He says they had a strong suspicion of how the sixth and seventh cases of COVID-19 in Fiji contracted the virus.
Bainimarama says the father stayed with the couple for several days after returning from India on the 22nd of March.
He says the father likely became infected at a large religious gathering he attended while in India.
The Prime Minister says upon returning to Fiji, he spent five days in the Nabua Settlement, and he then made his way by boat to Vanua Levu.
He then travelled to his home in Soasoa and is currently in stable condition in the isolation ward at Labasa Hospital.
Bainimarama says this patient did not declare any symptoms when returning from travel and did not follow the directive of entering into government-mandated home quarantine, a compulsory requirement for all those returning to the country from abroad that came into effect on the 19th of March. The Prime Minister says three days after the directive came into effect, this individual proceeded to ignore it by hopping from Nadi to Suva to Labasa in the span of a week, potentially spreading COVID-19 via land, air, and sea over just a few days.
He says contact tracing teams are in the process of identifying all other individuals who came into contact with this man including a few in Suva who he spoke with at car garages and fellow passengers on the ferry from Nabouwalu Jetty to Vanua Levu on the 27th of March.
Two cases of interest
Bainimarama says following his arrival in Soasoa, the 54-year-old man, his daughter-in-law, and his grandson were all taken into isolation and tested.
He says they tested all three, and two of them, including the father tested positive.
Bainimarama says they are currently doing a second-round test on the daughter-in-law and grandson to confirm their results.
He says in the meantime, all three family members remain in isolation at Labasa Hospital where they are in stable condition.
11-year-old daughter
Bainimarama says after identifying the couple who tested positive for the virus in the Nabua Settlement, they had also entered their 11-year-old daughter into isolation before she had developed symptoms.
The Prime Minister says she came down with a fever.
She was tested and confirmed as positive for the virus.
Lautoka woman
Bainimarama says in the Lautoka confined area, the 39-year-old sister of case number five, the woman from the first patient’s Zumba class, developed symptoms after she was already placed in quarantine within Natabua High School.
The Prime Minister says the woman alerted the Ministry of Health and was tested.
She was confirmed as positive for the virus and she has since been isolated at Lautoka Hospital where she remains in stable condition.
Nadi woman
Bainimarama says there is a new case in Nadi which is unrelated to any of the other patients.
He says this has many similarities to the first case in Nadera, Suva, the man who immediately entered self-quarantine upon arriving back from abroad, a responsible move that has, so far, resulted in no additional cases.
Bainimarama says this new case in Nadi is a 20-year-old woman who also entered self-quarantine immediately after returning to Fiji from Auckland.
He says they are grateful this young woman displayed the same diligence and compassion as that young man from Nadera as she placed herself into quarantine, and stayed there.
She was brought food that was dropped off at her door, and she refrained from coming into contact with others.
Bainimarama says her good habits have spared Nadi from a total lockdown.
All Fijians living with COVID-19 are in stable condition. Bainimarama says this is our single largest jump in cases in a day.
He says week over week, our new case numbers have doubled.
Lockdown of Soasoa area in Labasa
Bainimarama says they are going to lock down a 240-square-metre portion of Soasoa area on Vanua Levu – where the contact tracing for the first case in the North is underway.
He says the surrounding homes, and neighbours he came into contact with, will be under this contained area.
Bainimarama says if it’s determined that the spread has risked going beyond these boundaries, they will expand them accordingly.
Police Commissioner Sitiveni Qiliho says people who should be responsible and leaders in society are also involved in breaking the law.
The Police Commissioner says they will take some of the people to court after their self-quarantine period finishes or at the end of their treatment.
Qiliho says these people are not honest with Police.
He also confirms that the investigation is ongoing into the issue of information being leaked from the Ministry of Health.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Bainimarama says this level of lawlessness is irresponsible, un-Fijian and just plain stupid.
He says we are at war with the most devastating global pandemic in 100 years and any disobedience in our ranks will cost us lives.
He sent a strong warning that they don’t care who you are, rules are rules, break them, and you will be found and punished.
Bainimarama says it doesn’t matter how famous you are, it doesn’t matter how rich you are, it doesn’t even matter how religious you feel you are, no one has the magic cure to coronavirus, and no one is immune to our laws.
The Prime Minister says as always, these few bad examples hang a dark shadow over much of the good work being done all throughout the country adding a few irresponsible actors shouldn’t take away from the many more who are following the rules, or the long hours being put in by our frontline workers who are combatting COVID-19.
He further says in Lautoka, for example, thanks to the ongoing efforts by the medical teams on the ground, over 30,000 Fijians have been screened for fevers through temperature checks and in-person outreach.
He adds in his eyes, every Fijian who gets themselves screened on the streets or tested at a fever clinic is a true patriot.
He once again thanked the health workers for their hardwork. The Prime Minister says come next week, if the government does not see our fever testing numbers go dramatically up, and they don’t see the numbers of the curfew and quarantine violations go dramatically down, they will initiate a nationwide 24-hour curfew.
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