The capacity of people to be kept in quarantine facilities will be capped at 300, and this will be reviewed as and when appropriate.

And CCTV coverage has been upgraded in selected quarantine facilities for improved monitoring and surveillance.

These steps are among Fiji’s border quarantine facilities and protocols that have been “exhaustively reviewed” to protect against transmission stemming from individuals entered into quarantine and isolation, said Ministry of Health permanent secretary Dr James Fong.

He said the other measures taken include:

• Hotel workers deemed as ‘high-risk’ will include housekeeping staff, maintenance, and reception staff and will be accommodated within the quarantine facility;
• All infection prevention protocols have been reviewed in all quarantine facilities and a refresher program has been carried out for all hotel, military and health staff;
• Internal reviews of the standard cleaning and disinfection protocols and the food and amenities delivery and exchange protocols for quarantine facilities have been conducted;
• New mitigation measures have been introduced to address the risk related to the transmission of the virus within tightly-contained spaces within quarantine facilities in the course of operations and frontline surveillance reporting, which includes mandatory reporting for staff on leave, has been strengthened;
• Routine surveillance swabbing of all quarantine facility workers, health officials, military, and transfer companies will step-up from a fortnightly basis to a weekly basis (once every 7 days), to ensure early identification and appropriate management of cases; and
• We have escalated immunization rates for quarantine facilities and personnel – 90 per cent of hotel workers, 100 per cent of transfer drivers and 100 per cent of health workers and military personnel are fully-vaccinated.

“Well-run quarantine facilities with adequate bed capacity are critical to the containment of COVID-19,” Dr Fong said.

“We ask the public’s cooperation in establishing quarantine facilities.

“We are all safer when suitable facilities are open and available to cater for Fijians who may have been exposed to COVID-19. The more facilities are opened and run in accordance with these protocols, the higher level of success we’ll obtain in our containment of the virus.”

He added that those facilities would also allow Fijians returning to Fiji after seeking medical treatment to safely return home.