COVID-19 case

Last night the Permanent Secretary for Health, Dr James Fong announced that a woman from Makoi, outside Suva presented herself at a health centre yesterday with COVID symptoms.

“We’ll be treating this as another case of community transmission until proven otherwise. The contact tracing, testing and isolation protocols are currently activated and the centre is closed for now. Due to the steadily rising number of cases across Viti Levu, the borders of all six containment areas Lautoka, Nadi, Rakiraki, Lami, Suva and Nausori are being maintained.”

As the government works to roll out newly received AstraZeneca vaccines, it has issued renewed calls for the public to remain at home.

Health Permanent Secretary Dr James Fong said continued increases in cases which can't be tracked means containment zones will remain.

"The confirmation of cases of unknown origin, in particular, indicates the virus could still be present in all six areas, so the borders must be enforced, as must the other restrictions we have in place," Dr Fong said.

"When the data tells us to proceed in a different direction -- we'll tell you."

The case is a woman from Wainitarawau Settlement in Cunningham, in outer northern Suva.

She had attended a funeral in Lautoka last week along with a mother and her daughter who became Fiji's first Covid-19 community cases in more than a year, and over five hundred other people.

The Permanent Secretary of Health, Dr James Fong, said the woman's family members had been taken to the Navua hospital isolation unit. The Fiji Times quotes him saying the family members have so far tested negative.

The 53-year old woman is a first-generation contact identified through contact tracing related to the border quarantine case announced yesterday.

The woman lives in Nadi, with a travel history in Nadi and Lautoka.

All members of her household have already been entered into quarantine.

The Ministry of Health is awaiting the results of their Covid-19 tests.

To aid rapid contact tracing and reduce the likelihood of further transmission, the Government announced a lockdown of the Greater Nadi and Lautoka Area, starting from 4am this morning.

The case was confirmed just as Fiji was preparing to commemorate one year since the last case of Covid-19 outside of a border quarantine facility.

Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama said yesterday they became aware of a new border quarantine case that could pose a risk of transmission beyond the border which requires immediate steps, from all of us, to mitigate.

Thursday's play at the six warm-up events at Melbourne Park has been cancelled as a result.

But Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said: "At this stage there is no impact on the tournament proper."

Players will be free to return to competition after a negative test.

"We will work with everyone involved to facilitate testing as quickly as possible," said Australian Open organisers.

The Grand Slam tournament, which was pushed back by three weeks to enable players to quarantine, starts on Monday.

In a statement, the government confirmed the student was repatriated from the Philippines in September last year, tested positive for Covid-19 in quarantine, before recovering and being released in November after five consecutive negative test results.

The Solomon Star newspaper reported the student spent the Christmas-New Year period in his home village in Malaita Province before falling sick and testing positive for Covid-19 at the Kilufi Provincial Hospital this week.

Hipkins said the 32-year-old man, who arrived from India on 3 July, left his managed isolation last night to go to the Countdown supermarket on Victoria Street in central Auckland.

The man was outside the facility for 70 minutes.

Hipkins said after CCTV footage was viewed and the man was interviewed, the current assessment of the risk to the public was low.

"The person wore a mask although indicated that was removed for short periods of time."

In a statement, Countdown said the supermarket closed for cleaning at 8.15 this morning and will reopen tomorrow.