The Fijian Prime Minister has attributed the country’s virus-free status to “answered prayers, hard work”.
Suva, Fiji:
Fiji announced that it was free from coronavirus on Friday after the last known infected patient of the island nation received the green light, continuing the Pacific’s remarkable track record of success against the virus.
There was panic among Fiji’s 930,000 residents when the first case of COVID-19 was reported in mid-March, but strict isolation measures and border controls have helped limit infections, which culminated in 18 confirmed cases.
Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama attributed the country’s virus-free status to “answered prayers, hard work and the affirmation of science”.
“Fiji has just wiped out the last of our active COVID-19 patients,” he tweeted.
“And even with our numbers of tests increasing day by day, it is now 45 days since we recorded our last case. Without death, our recovery rate is 100%.”
The Pacific Islands were originally considered to be among the most vulnerable in the world to the virus due to insufficient health infrastructure and high rates of health problems such as diabetes and heart disease.
There was also concern that geographic isolation would transform the islands into incubators of infection, such as when a measles epidemic in Samoa late last year killed 83 people, mostly babies and toddlers .
However, the nations of the region acted quickly and made the costly decision to seal the borders and close the tourism trade that supports their economies, in order to protect their populations.
“Lifted the drawbridge”
As a result, many have not registered any virus, including Palau, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, the Marshall Islands, Vanuatu, the Cook Islands and Micronesia.
“They went beyond the elimination strategy and aimed at exclusion – they lifted the drawbridge,” epidemiologist Michael Baker of the University of Otago told AFP.
“In the case of Fiji, they have had cases but they have now reached elimination, so in some ways you could say they have done better than New Zealand.”
New Zealand appears to be on the verge of eliminating the virus, with health officials reporting on Friday that there have been no new infections in the past two weeks and that only one case of the virus has remained active.
Fiji has already expressed interest in joining a quarantine travel “bubble” with Australia and New Zealand, two countries that supply the bulk of tourists to the tropical idyll.
Despite Fiji’s success against COVID-19, officials are concerned about a possible second wave of the disease and insist that restrictions on social distancing remain in place.
“To avoid any risk of a second wave, the healthy habits that we have adopted in the past few months must continue,” Bainimarama said in a Facebook video on Friday.
“Wash your hands, wear masks if you are not feeling well, and maintain a safe physical distance from others,” he said.
Health Minister Ifereimi Waqainabete said the night curfew would ban gatherings of more than 20 people at the moment.
“We cannot let our guard down,” he said.
The Cooks, which was one of the first countries in the world to declare itself free from viruses in mid-April, have announced measures to carefully reopen its borders.
Prime Minister Henry Puna said citizens and work permit holders who had been in New Zealand for 30 days would soon be allowed to return home without being quarantined.
The Cook Islands News described the move as “the first step in bringing tourists back.”
(This story has not been edited by GalacticGaming staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
