Permanent Secretary for Health Dr James Fong has reiterated that if people fail to do their part regarding COVID restrictions, lockdown could be extended to two more weeks or even two months.

Dr Fong said the COVID Taskforce has assumed that everyone on Viti Levu has been exposed, therefore screening clinics have been set up all over the country.

The man at the centre of the nation’s containment effort reiterated what Fijians need to do in order to fight against this recent spate of transmissions.

As long as people move around, the virus moves. If people keep still, the virus keeps still, the virus does not move and the virus dies- that is a simple fact, he said.

“It just needs a new person to pass (the virus) to in order to survive but if you keep shifting the ‘goalpost, I will never get to the front,” he said.

“Everybody is moving around, you are shifting the goal post for me and I am not able to be there.”

Dr Fong said if people do not follow COVID safety measures, then a lot of these containment plans will have to be extended.

He said the community needs to understand that a large part of the fight to contain the pandemic before it starts transmitting at an exponential rate depends on the members of the community.

He said the medical team can only chase and contain the matter, but the burden of what they chase after this depends on people’s individual behaviour.

He added that in this case if transmissions start happening at an exponential rate, then screenings will stop and health facilities will then deal with the matter when patients visit hospitals, as seen worldwide.

Edited by Losirene Lacanivalu

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