COVID-19

The team will work with their Fijian counterparts from the Ministry of Health & Medical Services to bolster Fiji’s fight against COVID-19.

Australia and New Zealand deployed the highly trained joint multi-disciplinary team following a request from the Fijian Government.

The team’s priority over the next 28 days will be creating additional spaces to offer care to non-COVID patients and to strengthen infection control protocols.

The team are fully vaccinated and, following quarantine, will deploy to Suva to support the Fiji Ministry of Health.

Two locally acquired cases were recorded in the 24 hours to 8pm yesterday - a man in his 30s, which was announced yesterday morning, and the other a household contact of his.

Since 8pm yesterday, NSW Health recorded two additional cases of locally acquired transmission. These two cases will be officially recorded in tomorrow's numbers.

The two new cases, a woman and a man in their 50s, are from the Sutherland Shire and close contacts of previously reported cases. They have both been in isolation.

Prime Minister Bob Loughman expressed his sincere appreciation to the Chinese government on behalf of the government and the Vanuatu people for its continued support of and generous assistance to Vanuatu in this difficult time. 

He said the Sinopharm vaccine is the second COVID-19 vaccine to arrive in the country, and he decided to step forward to take the first jab.

"It is basically to give comfort to all of the country that when we want to improve our economic activities," he said.

The total number since the second outbreak started in April is now at 1373.

Permanent Secretary for Health Dr James Fong said a new cluster has been identified within the Rewa Emergency Operations Centre, possibly linked to the Vunimono cluster in Nausori.

There are two new cases for this cluster.

A new cluster is also at the Town House Hotel in Suva where Colonial War Memorial (CWM) Hospital and the ministry COVID-19 Incident Management Team (IMT) staff are being accommodated.

Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health Dr James Fong confirmed to the Fiji Times that the infants are in stable condition at the Lautoka Hospital.

The infants and their mothers were from a community in lockdown in Nadi.

They were recently assisted by the non-governmental organisation - Foundation of the Rural Integrated Enterprises and Development (FRIEND) Fiji.

A post on the FRIEND Fiji official social media page said they responded to a request for assistance from the community in lockdown in Nadi.

The Ministry of Health confirmed that 98 of the cases are linked to the existing clusters.

21 cases are from the CWM Hospital cluster in Suva, 16 from Nawajikuma, Nawaka, Nadi, six from Tramline, Nawaka, Nadi, one from Kinoya, two from Navosai, 11 from Waila, 11 from Navy, eight from the ministry’s COVID-19 Incident Management Tean, 15 from Muanikoso, Nasinu  and seven from the Nasinu Police Barracks.

Permanent Secretary for Health, Dr James Fong, says cases from some areas are under investigation to determine whether they have links to other cases.

At the end of the G7 summit in Cornwall, the PM said countries were rejecting "nationalistic approaches".

He said vaccinating the world would show the benefits of the G7's democratic values.

There was also a pledge to wipe out their contribution to climate change.

After the first meeting of world leaders in two years, Mr Johnson said "the world was looking to us to reject some of the selfish, nationalistic approaches that marred the initial global response to the pandemic and to channel all our diplomatic, economic and scientific might to defeating Covid for good".

D'Ath said the 44-year-old woman was staying with her husband and other family members in Caloundra and was tested yesterday, with a positive result confirmed this afternoon.

The woman left Victoria on 1 June, travelled through New South Wales and crossed the Queensland border on 5 June. She was being interviewed and Queensland Health would release a list of exposure sites, D'Ath said.

Victoria's lockdown had already started when she left.

Testing clinics on the Sunshine Coast will be open for extended hours and D'Ath has urged people to get tested.

Charities have been working hard to deal with a desperate need for food and other necessities like baby formula, masks and medicine.

In the squatter settlements in the Nasinu district on the outskirts of Suva many people live hand to mouth at the best of times.

Now things are getting critical because people have been laid off during the prolonged lockdown, according to Usaia Moli, the president of the local branch of the Council of Social Services, a nationwide charity.

His comments on the subject, made during a call with reporters on World Bank economic forecasts, came as WTO negotiations over the proposed waiver resumed in Geneva.

Asked whether he backs a WTO vaccine IP waiver, which India, South Africa and other emerging market countries argue is needed to expand vaccine access, Malpass said: "We don't support that, for the reason that it would run the risk of reducing the innovation and the R&D in that sector."