The Ministry of Health has noted the downturn in COVID-19 case numbers and positivity rate although they are limiting the testing to high-risk groups and places of concern.
Permanent Secretary for Health, Dr. James Fong says this coupled with the decreasing numbers of admissions, severe disease, and deaths are all consistently indicating that they are on the tail end of the epidemic.
He says the hospital COVID bed occupancy is getting less with increased critical care bed reserves which are now increasingly deployed for non-COVID clinical care and their oxygen therapy intervention reserves are at 80%.
Dr. Fong says these gains will support their national endeavor to get people back to their homes and facilitate their return to greater social and economic stability.
He says despite these gains, the Ministry of Health remains guarded in its outlook on the future.
Dr. Fong adds they are concerned that there remain too many pockets of unvaccinated communities with high numbers of vulnerable persons living among them.
He says the Ministry has put in place processes to identify these groups.
Meanwhile, 569,931 adults in Fiji have received their first dose of the vaccine and 341,679 have received their second doses. This means that 97.1% of the target population have received at least one dose and 58.2% are now fully vaccinated nationwide.
