The Fijian capital Suva entered a 14-day lockdown Monday because the Pacific island nation battled to include a Covid-19 spike following a “superspreader” funeral event.
Around 100,000 people in the city must stay in containment zones and non-essential businesses are shuttered after the first community coronavirus cases in 12 months were detected.
A soldier contracted the virus at a quarantine facility and is believed to have transmitted it to a maid, who then exposed up to 500 people at a funeral.
The permanent secretary for health and medical services, James Fong, said four new cases emerged over the weekend.
“Three of the cases involved persons who attended the funeral that we have identified as a superspreader event, including a husband and wife who circulated through the community,” Fong mentioned.
It will not be clear how the fourth individual, a lady from the outskirts of Suva, grew to become contaminated.
“She and her husband have been positioned in quarantine, however prudence requires us to deal with this case as a attainable neighborhood transmission,” Fong mentioned.
“Because we cannot yet pin down the movements of these people and identify all their contacts, we are forced to take strict precautionary measures.”
Fiji has largely contained the virus by means of strict isolation measures and border controls, recording fewer than 100 circumstances and simply two deaths in a inhabitants of 930,000.
The emergence of neighborhood transmission is a blow for Fiji’s hopes of opening quarantine-free journey bubbles with Australia and New Zealand, the supply of most of its worldwide guests.
Fiji’s economic system is closely depending on tourism, which has all however evaporated throughout the pandemic.
Monthly customer numbers had been down as much as 99 p.c from pre-pandemic ranges, in keeping with authorities statistics.
Australia and New Zealand opened a trans-Tasman bubble per week in the past permitting quarantine-free journey between the 2 nations — though New Zealand has since suspended contact with Western Australia attributable to a Covid-19 outbreak in Perth.
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