{"id":283659,"date":"2021-06-25T13:50:01","date_gmt":"2021-06-25T10:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/fiji-says-covid-19-now-widespread-as-cases-spike\/"},"modified":"2021-06-25T13:50:01","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T10:50:01","slug":"fiji-says-covid-19-now-widespread-as-cases-spike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/fiji-says-covid-19-now-widespread-as-cases-spike\/","title":{"rendered":"#Fiji says COVID-19 now widespread as cases spike"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Fiji says COVID-19 now widespread as cases spike<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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Fiji health chiefs have admitted for the first time that COVID-19 transmission is widespread in the community after the Pacific nation recorded more than 300 new daily cases.\n <\/p>\n

But authorities continue to reject calls for a nationwide lockdown, saying the 930,000-strong population’s failure to obey health rules designed to contain the virus would render it ineffective.<\/p>\n

Permanent Secretary for Health James Fong announced late Thursday that Fiji had recorded 308 new daily virus cases, taking the total number in a second wave of infections that began in April to almost 2,800.<\/p>\n

Fong acknowledged calls for a lockdown but said Fiji’s public compliance was low and authorities had no ability to enforce it, particularly in the densely populated shantytown settlements that were at most risk.<\/p>\n

“The tragic reality is that Fijians living in communities most vulnerable to the virus\u2014including those in informal settlements\u2014are also those most vulnerable to the socioeconomic catastrophe that a 24-hour lockdown for 28 days would bring about,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Even under such a strict lockdown, we believe the virus would continue to circulate within many of these communities.”<\/p>\n

Fiji went a full year without recording any community cases up until April, when it was hit by a second wave of the quick-spreading Delta variant first identified in India.<\/p>\n

As numbers continue to spike, doubling every nine days, the government’s head of health protection, Aalisha Sahukhan, said “all the evidence is that there is widespread community transmission”.<\/p>\n

“With increasing cases, we expect increasing severe disease and deaths,” she said. <\/p>\n

“While our hospitals right now are not overwhelmed with severe cases, from what we have seen in other countries with widespread community transmission during this pandemic, this is a very real possibility that we are preparing for.”<\/p>\n

Fiji’s two largest hospitals have already been converted into dedicated COVID-19 facilities, with field hospitals set up to care for non-coronavirus patients.<\/p>\n

The government’s strategy is to use localised lockdowns to limit the virus while vaccinating the general<\/a> population.<\/p>\n

Only about one percent of Fijians have been fully vaccinated, with the Red Cross blaming misinformation spread online for the slow rollout.<\/p>\n

President Joiji Konrote has urged his compatriots to get their jabs.<\/p>\n

“Please think of our beloved nation and our people, take the vaccination,” he said in an address posted online Friday.<\/p>\n

“It is one of our main hopes of controlling the spread of the virus.”\n <\/p>\n\n

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Fiji’s virus spike ‘wake-up call’ for Pacific Islands: Red Cross\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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\n \u00a9 2021 AFP<\/p>\n

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Citation<\/strong>:
\n Fiji says COVID-19 now widespread as cases spike (2021, June 25)
\n retrieved 25 June 2021
\n from https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news<\/a>\/2021-06-fiji-covid-widespread-cases-spike.html<\/p>\n

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