The announcement that a 30-year-old man is our latest border quarantine case of COVID-19 should bring us back down to earth in as far as the global pandemic is concerned.
For many Fijians, every time we get a confirmed case, there will be a touch of concern raised. In fact we cannot afford to be complacent.
So this latest announcement should prick that sense of urgency in terms of staying focused on protecting ourselves against the virus.
We cannot afford to relax our guards.
Not at a time when the world is still trying to get the pandemic under control.
The Ministry of Health announced yesterday that the man arrived in Nadi on February 18 on a flight from Manila, Philippines, transiting through Hong Kong. He was transferred to the isolation ward at the Lautoka Hospital.
A 58-year-old woman returning from Panama also returned a weak positive test result during routine testing.
Because of her history of testing positive in Panama, she would not be counted as a new case for Fiji.
So far we have recorded 57 COVID-19 cases with one active case, 54 recoveries and two deaths since the first case was reported on March 19, 2020.
The last 39 cases had been international travel-associated cases detected in border quarantine.
We are thankfully COVID-contained.
The fact that all new cases have been detected at border quarantine does place pressure on our frontliners and border officers to stay vigilant.
They carry our hopes and aspirations.
On the global front, in its situational report on Tuesday, the World Health Organization stated the number of global cases continued to drop for the sixth consecutive week, with 2.4 million new cases last week, an 11 per cent decline compared to the previous week.
The number of deaths, it reported, also continued to fall for the previous three weeks, with nearly 66,000 deaths reported last week, a 20 per cent decline as compared to the previous week.
It brought the global cumulative numbers to 110.7 million cases and over 2.4 million deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Around the region, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews says more restrictions could ease today in the Australian state.
He, however, warned Victorians not to become complacent, despite more than 2000 across the state getting the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine this week, according to The Daily Telegraph yesterday.
It reported that Victorians can expect to hear announcements on a bigger percentage of workers being allowed back into offices, a relaxing of indoor mask-wearing restrictions and a leniency on allowing groups to gather.
On the home front, let’s be motivated to stay focused on being safe, and assist in keeping the status quo.
