‘Answered prayers’: Fiji declares itself coronavirus free
Fiji announced it had been coronavirus free Friday following the island nation’s last known infected patient was given the all-clear, continuing the Pacific’s amazing record of success against the virus.
There is panic among Fiji’s 930,000 population when the first COVID-19 case was reported in mid-March, but strict isolation measures and border controls kept a lid on infections, which peaked at 18 confirmed cases.
Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama attributed the country’s virus-free status to “answered prayers, effort, and affirmation of science”.
“Fiji has just cleared the last of our active COVID-19 patients,” he tweeted.
“And even with our testing numbers climbing by the day, it’s now been 45 days since we recorded our last case. Without deaths, our recovery rate is completely.”
The Pacific islands were at first viewed as among the world’s most susceptible to the virus as a result of under-resourced health infrastructure and high rates of health issues such as for example diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
There were also fears geographic isolation could turn the hawaiian islands into infection incubators, like whenever a measles epidemic in Samoa late this past year killed 83 people, most of them very young children.
However, nations in your community acted swiftly and made the costly decision to seal borders and turn off the tourism trade that sustains their economies, to be able to protect their populations.
- ‘Lifted the drawbridge’ -
Due to this fact, many have not recorded an individual case of the virus, including Palau, Tonga, the Solomons Islands, Samoa, the Marshall Islands, Vanuatu, the Cook Islands and Micronesia.
“They went beyond the strategy of elimination and aimed for exclusion - they lifted the drawbridge,” epidemiologist Michael Baker from Otago University told AFP.
“In the case of Fiji, they did have cases but they’ve now achieved elimination, so in a few ways you could say they’ve done much better than New Zealand.”
New Zealand appears on the cusp of eliminating the virus, with health authorities reporting Friday there have been no new infections for 14 days and only 1 virus case remained active.
Fiji has recently expressed interest in joining a quarantine-free travel “bubble” with Australia and New Zealand, two nations supplying the majority of the tropical idyll’s tourists.
Despite Fiji’s success against COVID-19, officials concerned about a possible second wave of the condition and insisted social-distancing restrictions stay in place.
“In order to avoid of any risk of another wave, the healthy habits we’ve found days gone by months must continue,” Bainimarama said in a Facebook video on Friday.
“Wash the hands, wear face masks if you’re feeling unwell and keep maintaining a safe physical distance from others whenever you can,” he said.
Health Minister Ifereimi Waqainabete said a night-time curfew bans on gatherings of more than 20 persons would remain for now.
“We can not drop our guard,” he said.
The Cooks, that was among the first countries on the planet to declare itself virus-free in mid-April, has announced measures to cautiously reopen its borders.
Prime Minister Henry Puna said citizens and those with work permits who was simply in New Zealand for thirty days would soon be allowed to return home without entering quarantine.
The Cook Islands News described the move as “the first rung on the ladder in bringing back the tourists”.
