Fiji is not taking passengers from any countries at all.
This was confirmed by Ministry of Health permanent secretary Dr James Fong when he alluded to reports of neighbouring Australia suspending the return of its residents and citizens from heavily-infected India.
“I want to be clear with everyone: Fiji suspended all international passenger flights from all countries on the 22nd of April, nine days ago,” Dr Fong said.
“We are not labelling countries as high-risk or low-risk – we simply are not taking passengers from any countries at all.”
Dr Fong said the only exceptions were Fijians travelling for medical procedures and those with special approval granted by the health ministry.
“… Our quarantine capacity has been directed entirely dedicated towards contacts of local cases in Fiji,” he added.
The PS said at last night’s daily COVID-19 briefing that before the ministry would “even” consider reopening international passenger travel to Fiji, “we need a much firmer grasp on this outbreak”.
“And given this outbreak’s index case was at the border, we will be revamping our quarantine facilities with additional CCTV cameras and strengthening our protocols to protect against human error to an even more stringent degree than before.”
