It was one of those beautiful early mornings in Lami yesterday.
The sun was out. It was turning out to be a lovely day.
It was clear that the reopening of our containment borders had actually topped up human traffic as well as vehicle movement around this little urban centre.
On the pavement next to a bread shop stood a few youngsters.
They all weren’t wearing their masks properly. It was either hung over their ears, below their chins, and at least one had none on.
After some time, this little street that had shops lined up along it was pretty busy that early.
In the Capital City later in the afternoon of the same day, a couple stood opposite the general market, on the footpath next to a major supermarket.
They had their masks hanging below their chins.
They were sharing a cigarette as people walked by.
With our containment zones reopening, we can only hope that people are not assuming that the COVID-19 virus is no longer with us.
We can only hope that people aren’t living dangerously under the mistaken impression that the virus is ineffective!
The permanent secretary for Health and Medical Services, Dr James Fong, announced late on Friday night that there were 132 new cases of COVID-19 for the 24-hour period ending at 8am on Friday.
There were 36 cases in the Western Division, 95 cases in the Central Division and one case in the Eastern Division.
Now what should be of interest is that fact that there were three new deaths for the period of September 9 to 15. All deaths were reported from Tavua.
Two were not vaccinated and one was not fully vaccinated. Dr Fong said, following further review, they have an additional 19 COVID-19 deaths to report for the period of 03rd July 3, 2021- August 11, 2021.
All these deaths were reported from the Central Division.
An analysis of the deaths, he said, had highlighted that individuals were aged between 43 and 94 years, 58% (n=11) were males, 84% (n=16) of the individuals died at home or on their way to the hospital and 89.5% (n=17) of these deaths were unvaccinated, the remaining 10.5% (n=2) received only one dose of the vaccine.
This meant, he said, that there were no deaths of individuals who were fully vaccinated.
So now we have had 566 deaths due to COVID-19 in Fiji, with 564 of these deaths during the outbreak that started in April this year.
That’s a huge number. It is a shocking reflection of how we have responded to the outbreak in Fiji.
He said the national 7-day average daily test positivity was 12.2%, which was on a downward trend but still indicating a high level of community transmission.
Our challenge now is to never assume that the virus is contained. We have to stick to the status quo.
We have to fight the virus. We cannot relax our guards. We cannot be complacent.
We must adhere to every COVID-safety advice and listen to health experts.
We must do this for ourselves, our loved ones and for our nation.
Remember our children have not been vaccinated yet. Love them and protect them by staying safe today!
