Four new cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed after another 2065 tests.
Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong says one case is extremely serious.
He says the patient, case 125, is a 53-year-old man who was admitted to the Lautoka Hospital on the 19th of April 2021 for a surgical procedure.
The procedure was performed successfully however on the 28th of April, he developed some respiratory symptoms.
Doctor Fong says on the 29th of April, he was seen by case 120, the 25-year-old doctor at Lautoka Hospital.
The Permanent Secretary says the man was asked to be swabbed for COVID-19 however he refused on two occasions.
The doctor developed symptoms on May 1st, and tested positive yesterday.
Doctor Fong says on the 2nd of May, the same patient was assessed by case 121, the 30-year-old doctor from Lautoka Hospital.
He says they know that this doctor, case 121, had tested negative for the virus on April 26th, he tested positive yesterday as part of contact tracing for case 120, and his results indicate he very recently caught the virus.
Early today, the patient’s condition began deteriorating.
He was moved into an intensive care unit and swabbed for the virus. Barely four hours ago he tested positive for COVID-19.
Doctor Fong says his condition will be discussed more with his family before any public announcement.
The Permanent Secretary says the man’s described timeline and the recent deterioration in his condition indicate he is likely a late-stage carrier of the virus.
Doctor Fong says they suspect that this patient, who is case number 125, transmitted the virus to the doctors, not the other way around.
He says they do not know when or where this patient contracted the virus as it could have been from outside or within the hospital.
The other local case is a 27-year-old woman who resides in Narere.
She entered quarantine on 28th April 2021 as a contact of one of the cases from Makoi.
Further investigations revealed that, during a family gathering on April 17th, she also had close contact with another case from Makoi.
Doctor Fong says she was confirmed as positive for COVID-19 this morning.
He says that gathering is now potentially the source point of three cases.
Doctor Fong says it was only a small family gathering with members from a few different households, but that was more than enough to have national ramifications.
He says it is why one of the first and most important health measures they introduced was to limit gatherings, of all sizes, everywhere in Fiji. The members of the Narere woman’s household have also been in quarantine from 29th April.
He says all have tested negative for COVID-19 at this time.
Doctor Fong says unfortunately, she did not have the careFIJI app installed, so they are relying entirely on the traditional contact tracing methods.
He says if she had the careFIJI app and had kept it on, this could all happen much faster.
The Permanent Secretary says with more than 250,000 downloads, careFIJI is rapidly being widely adopted across Fiji but on behalf of the contact tracers, Doctor Fong says he won’t stay quiet about the need for more downloads of the app until that number surpasses 600,000, which is the number of smartphones in Fiji.
There were two border quarantine cases.
These are both soldiers returning from their tours of duty as peacekeepers in Sinai.
